Macedonia has submitted its candidature to chair the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2023, Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani told a press conference on Saturday.

He noted that the country has made great progress in recent years in terms of full respect for the common values on which the OSCE is based, such as human rights, democracy, rule of law and the development of the model of interethnic relations, which, as he said, have been conformed in all relevant international reports.

A month ago, we marked 25 years of our membership in the OSCE and although we have been a full-fledged member for two and a half decades, said Osmani, so far we have not shown ambition, mostly because of the focus on our own priorities on the road to NATO and the European Union.