Macedonia cannot allow the provocation with the opening of the cultural club “Vanco Mihajlov” in Bitola, in the presence of the Bulgarian state leadership, to interrupt the negotiation process, although the opening of the club is unacceptable for us, Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said on Tuesday.

After several days of fierce reactions in the public why the government allowed this event to take place, which cooled the relations between Skopje and Sofia, Osmani today explained what preceded the event and how the Macedonian side positioned itself.

Initially, the Vice President of Bulgaria Iliana Iotova asked to come to Bitola, and then we found out that Karakacanov and Zaharieva would also come. We realized that the opening of the cultural club is a provocation, in order to prove the narrative that the Bulgarians in Macedonia do not have minority rights and to use that as a justification for the veto. We did not want to give an alibi and so we gave permission to hold the event. I think the name, not the opening of the club, is a provocation. The most important thing was not to fall under provocations. Our position was that the opening of the club is unacceptable, but we will not prevent it, says Osmani and adds that the registration of the name of the club is not in the competence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He agrees that this will complicate the negotiations and says “of course a cloud over the negotiations has descended”.

But I cannot allow this to interrupt the negotiation process. I cannot say that everyone who came to Bitola wanted to provoke, but came to prevent an incident. I told them how wrong it was, I even sent them a CV from Vanco Mihajlov, but I still thought it would be wrong to prevent the event. But it is now easy to explain in Europe that not every history can be acceptable to both sides. Negotiations must continue because there is no alternative, Osmani said.

The Minister says that Macedonia will not include the Bulgarians in the Constitution until the negotiation process with the EU begins, and that they still do not know who exactly called from Macedonia to Bulgaria to prevent the negotiation process.