Bulgarian Minister Touches Raw Nerve in Macedonia

Macedonia has signed a friendship agreement with Bulgaria and intends to honour it, Macedonia's Foreign Ministry has said, after the Bulgarian Defence Minister, Krasimir Karakachanov, disputed the existence of the Macedonian language at the weekend.

The ministry on Monday warned of the danger of making "a similar counter-response that would create a chain of negative reactions that will separate us [Macedonia and Bulgaria] and will create hostility instead of friendship.

"We have signed a friendship agreement and friendship that we will build, and which encompasses mutual understanding, respect and care for the neighbour's interests," the ministry continued.

The Bulgarian Defence Minister and leader of the nationalist VMRO party told Bulgarian National Television, BNT on Monday that since the Good Neighbour Agreement was signed in August 2017, Macedonia had continued to "play tricks … falsify history and to force a Macedonian identity and language not only within Macedonia, but also on Bulgarian territory".

On Saturday, Karakachanov protested against Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev's words to the Macedonian parliament, in which he insisted that the historic agreement between Greece and Macedonia on Macedonia's name had clarified the existence of a separate Macedonian language - an idea that Bulgaria has long disputed.

In its statement, VMRO threatened to call on the Bulgarian government to withdraw its support for Macedonia's bid to join NATO and the EU.

VMRO also said it was unhappy with the work of the joint Bulgarian-Macedonian historical committee, established under the Good Neighbour agreement, and expected it to conclude that the two countries shared a joint history before 1944 and add this as an...

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