Bulgaria is pressuring Macedonia and conditioning Macedonia’s EU accession talks in a push to claim the medieval history of the region. But in his most recent comments on the dispute, Zoran Zaev went a little further back in history.

In an attempt to paint the dispute in an irrational light, he disclosed a portion of his conversation with former Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. Zaev said that, when pressed on the “shared history” by Borisov, and Bulgarian claims that Macedonians are derived as a nation from the Bulgarian nation, Zaev said that he responded in this way:

We spoke about this with Boyko Borisov. You know, I’m an Orthodox Christian and he is an Orthodox Christian. It is very simple to understand it, because he asked me how we view our origin. According to the science, we all originate from the apes. And according to religion – from Adam and Eve. Now, on whether the Macedonians across the entire world come from the Bulgarians, or the Bulgarians come from the Macedonians… do we not all come from the apes or from Adam and Eve? There is a historic commission, they should work on all possible angles, Zaev said in an interview.

This “deep” statements comes at a time when Macedonia is hoping that a push from EU officials and from Portugal, of all countries, will get the caretaker Government in Bulgaria to relent and to allow Macedonia to finally open its EU accession talks.