Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry summoned North Macedonia Ambassador Agneza Rousi-Popovska following the shooting at the Bulgarian-owned Tsar Boris III cultural club in Ohrid, noting that the repeated violence in recent months creates impunity,
Earlier this week, an unknown aggressor threw stones at the club breaking glass and part of the illuminated advertisement, but days later this escalated to a firearm being discharged at the premises.
Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry condemned the serious criminal act in a protest note.
“We note the reaction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia, but we categorically do not accept such serious criminal acts to be defined as an act of vandalism,” the Bulgarian position adds.
“More and serious consistent efforts are needed to fulfil the commitments related to the protection and guarantee of human rights, which is among the main criteria on the path of the accession of the Republic of North Macedonia to the EU,” commented the deputy minister and foreign minister spokesperson Kostadin Kojabashev during the ministry’s regular weekly briefing.
In the protest letter handed to the ambassador, it is stated that the repeated examples of escalating violence in recent months show in practice that the systematic absence of targeted and adequate measures creates a feeling of impunity and encourages the multiplication of hate crimes against Bulgarians in North Macedonia, Kodjabashev added.
Foreign Minister Nikolay Milkov, who is currently in Barcelona, spoke with his Macedonian counterpart Bujar Osmani, sharply raising the issue of the ongoing escalation. Osmani committed to clarifying what happened as soon as possible.
“Such events are completely unacceptable, they can endanger human lives and strengthen retrograde processes that are in conflict with the country’s European integration,” said North Macedonia’s Foreign Ministry.
From the parliamentary rostrum, Kostadin Kostadinov, leader of the populist pro-Russian party Vazrazhdane, Kostadin Kostadinov, who in principle says he opposes EU and NATO, has called on the government “to urgently raise the issue of attacks against Bulgarian clubs in North Macedonia at the highest level for discussion in the European Union.”
This is “because the attack with a firearm against the Bulgarian club ‘Tsar Boris III’ in Ohrid is not an attack against Bulgaria, but against the EU, and perhaps in some sense also an attack against NATO,” he said.
North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski commented, observing that the name of the club was provocative.
“Even when these clubs were opened, I said that the names chosen for them could only represent a provocation… The idea was to open cultural and informational clubs that would bring citizens of both countries closer, not clubs which cause negative emotions in the citizens,” he said, adding that he has already called on the citizens to treat themselves with dignity and according to European criteria as a candidate country for EU membership.
The name ‘Tsar Boris III’ is seen as a provocation in North Macedonia. The Jewish community and the Fund for the Holocaust of the Jews of Macedonia announced that its registration glorifies Nazism and fascism.
During the rule of Boris III, nearly 50,000 Jews were saved from the territory of today’s Bulgaria, but another 11,343 Jews from the so-called “new lands” – Belomorie, Vardar Macedonia and Pirot, which were annexed by Bulgaria with the blessing of Nazi Germany, were deported to the concentration camps in Poland.
(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
Source: euractiv.com
