It is extremely unusual and certainly outside the internal procedures of the Alliance for  a president of a NATO member state to call on security services to respond to alleged violations of the rights of nationals living in another NATO member state. The reaction of the Bulgarian president is also contrary to the basic principle in the international policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, President Stevo Pendarovski told “Pressing TV” regarding the meeting of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev with the security structures of official Sofia and the request for their engagement to protect Macedonian Bulgarians from alleged violations of basic human rights and freedoms and the alleged obstacle to proclaiming themselves as such.

So far, President Pendarovski has not received any information from the competent institutions for violation of the human rights and freedoms of Macedonian citizens just because they declared their ethnicity, said the Office of President Stevo Pendarovski.

As a candidate country for EU membership, we have been under regular monitoring of Brussels for years, but even in the latest annual report on the progress towards EU, no such cases have been registered, said the President’s Office.