The Police Union of Macedonia joined representatives of the military and the fire-fighters associations in protesting against Zoran Zaev’s new policy toward Bulgaria. In an open letter, the Union states that the acceptance of all Bulgarian demands which Zaev announced in an interview last week will greatly damage Macedonian national interests.

As part of the Macedonian security structures, we stand in support of Macedonian national interests in relation to the negotiations being conducted with the Bulgarian authorities over Macedonian national identity fundamentals. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the members of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia in support of the interests of the nation and the state, to which we have sworn an oath. We inform the politicians that accepting any type of compromise regarding these values will be seen as a hostile act toward our country, the Police Union said in its statement.

The Union calls on other police unions to join them in this position. It also calls on Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski to declare whether and to what extent he supports Zaev’s positions declared in his BGNES interview. Spasovski initially posted the same statement shared by the SDSM party in support of Zaev, but then made a broader statement criticizing the notion that the Bulgarian army should be seen as an army of liberation in the latter stages of the Second World War.