Zoran Zaev is setting us up for a national defeat, but it is up to us whether we will prevent it, said opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski in a statement issued this morning. During the protest on Saturday, Mickoski warned that these are the crucial days when Zaev is preparing to sign a new treaty with Bulgaria, one that will include legally binding obligation for Macedonia to dramatically alter its history and national identity.

If we break this link in the chain of our existence, we break our continuity. If we give up the partisans we give up the Ilinden komiti, and if we give them up, we give up on a century of our struggle for liberation. What will we have left then? Artificial nations and rootless trees are destined to whither and die, Mickoski said.