President Stevo Pendarovski called the latest claims of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev that 10,000 Bulgarians were killed in Macedonia after World War II a lie and a sheer construction.

The figure of 10,000 Bulgarians allegedly killed is a lie, a sheer construction for political purposes. There is not a single relevant historical source, neither in the Bulgarian, nor in the Macedonian, world level historiography that 10,000 people were killed in concentration camps at that time in our country. Something that could fit into that definition of a concentration camp existed in Croatia on Goli Otok. There were never any concentration camps on the territory of Macedonia then or today. I repeat for two years – if in this dispute we concentrate predominantly on resolving historical controversies, we will never agree. If we focus on what is a realistic criterion for joining the EU – corruption, the rule of law, the fight for human rights and freedoms – we will quickly come to a mutually acceptable solution. Let’s leave history to historians, and resolve current problems today. We were not elected in elections to decide who was which nationality in the time of Samuil’s kingdom, but to solve the problems of the citizens now, Pendarovski replied to Radev.