Wess Mitchell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, best known in Macedonia for forcibly pushing the public to accept the deal with Greece to rename the country, has resigned from the State Department.

Although Mitchell resigned via the Washington Post, a paper extremely critical of President Trump, he himself insisted that he is not resigning due to policy differences, but merely because he wants to spend more time with his family.

I’m fully supportive of him, the job he’s doing, the leadership team here. But I feel like I’ve done what I came in to do. My kids have a greater claim to my time right now than the public does, Mitchell said speaking about Secretary Mike Pompeo.

Mitchell was nominated during the term of Secretary Rex Tillerson, recruited from the CEPA think tank which promotes strong US foreign leadership, especially as a counter to Russia.

Mitchell visited Macedonia several times during the political crisis, and in mid September he strongly pushed the public to go out and vote in favor of renaming the country at the referendum. But, after the public largely boycotted the vote, and with that rejected the name change, Mitchell wrote a letter to VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski saying he is dissapointed that the party does not support the name change. Mickoski replied that “VMRO-DPMNE can’t support a deal which was overwhelmingly rejected by the citizens, which amends the Constitution to rename Macedonia and forces Macedonians to give up on their basic rights”.