"I stand by everything I said, which is that it is uncultured, uncivil and uncivilised for the president of a country to visit you and not honour him by planting the flag of the country he represents. There is no excuse for Rumen Radev for not planting the Macedonian flag during the visit of Gordana Siljanovska Davkova as President of Macedonia."
This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport of North Macedonia Aleksandar Nikoloski. His statement came in response to the reactions of Bulgarian politicians to his scandalous statement on the meeting of the presidents of Bulgaria and the North Macedonia, reports BGNES.
"The crisis in the Bulgarian society was created by these same politicians, who instead of giving an answer to the native public about the high level of corruption and crime in Bulgaria, about the bad economy, because of which many people leave, want to deal with Macedonia. Their dealings with Macedonia actually show that they do not want good neighbourliness, nor do they want Macedonia to become a member of the European Union, let alone to progress towards the European Union", Nikolski added.
He accused Bulgarian politicians of trying to make the North Macedonia part of their election campaigns.
"Of course, we will not allow this and I will not allow anyone to look for excuses in my statements or in anything else that is happening in Macedonia. In fact, the very fact that these are statements taken out of context and that they are badly understood in Bulgaria shows that the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages are different. Because what has one context in the Macedonian language obviously has another context in the Bulgarian language," Nikoloski added.
"We are clear who we are - we are a separate nation, the Macedonian nation, a separate people, the Macedonian people. We speak our own Macedonian language, different from all other languages, we have our own history, our own culture. We know who we are and we do not need to prove ourselves to anyone. And those who want to read history differently are 19th century politicians, not 21st century politicians. And I would like to say something to those politicians who want my resignation. Politicians who have been accused of crimes and corruption, politicians who we have seen in photographs sleeping on a bed next to wads of gold and hundreds of thousands of euros in foreign currency, want me to resign. Will such politicians ask me to resign? Excuse me, gentlemen, but you are not worthy of asking me to resign," the deputy prime minister stressed.
He adds that he regrets that the good relations between the two neighbouring peoples, the Macedonian and the Bulgarian, are being destroyed by corrupt politicians who can do nothing for their own country except to bring malice and hatred.
"And this is the one I mentioned with the gold bars, this is another one who is considered a big oligarch in Bulgaria, as well as a number of other corrupt politicians, and also the one who is the president of Bulgaria and who did not show a minimum of decency and a minimum of civilised behaviour to show the Macedonian flag during the visit of the Macedonian president. And that is why my reaction is such and that is why I and VMRO-DPMNE will continue to defend the Macedonian national interests. Our goal is for Macedonia to progress, to become a member of the European Union, to walk the path towards the European Union, but to do so with pride and dignity, not humiliation. We will always defend Macedonian national interests. We are not looking for anything else, but we want to defend our own," Nikolski added. | BGNES
