Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin asked Macedonian Minister Ivan Stoilkovic to perform his duties in favour of Belgrade, BGNES reported.
Vulin sent his "heartfelt congratulations" to Stoilkovic, chairman of the Democratic Party of Serbs in the RSM, following his appointment as deputy prime minister and minister of inter-communal relations in the Macedonian government.
"I congratulate you on this important and responsible position. I want you to carry it out with dedication and responsibility for the good of North Macedonia, for the good of the Serbs in North Macedonia, but also for Serbia. Never forget the people from whom you came. All of us, including you, owe everything to them," Vulin was quoted as saying by the Serbian newspaper Telegraf.
"You are the first Serbian deputy prime minister in a government of North Macedonia ever and I hope that this will not be the only success you will be remembered for," the Serbian deputy prime minister's congratulatory message said.
BGNES recalls that Ivan Stoilkovic welcomed in Belgrade every Russian politician who came to visit, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Stoilkovic called the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, when Bosnian Serbs massacred more than 9,000 Bosnian Muslims, "Disneyland."
In October last year, the politician said that "the Macedonian state has no future without Serbia". On 20 July 2017, Stoilkovic, along with Stefcho Jakimovski of the GROM party, were received in Moscow by Sergei Zheleznyak, deputy secretary of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. Stoilkovic and Zheleznyak then complained "about attempts to turn Macedonia into a NATO protectorate against the will of the vast majority of the people, to change the identity, name and constitution of the RSM." Ivan Stoilkovic explained that his visit to Moscow was aimed at "strengthening the spiritual ties between Russia and Macedonia, as well as the political, economic and cultural ties" between the two countries. | BGNES
