Macedonia

Fourth, Paris took the opportunity at the summit to publish a new national strategy for the Western Balkan region, acknowledging a retreat and a lack of interest over the last decade after strong involvement in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s with NATO's Kosovo force KFOR in particular.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urges Greek voters to "close the path to those forces who do not hesitate...to divide people," during a campaign rally in the northern port city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday night.

The Council of Ministers approved a draft protocol on cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Government of the Republic of Northern Macedonia in the field of combating trafficking in human beings.

Greece on Tuesday conducted its first fighter jet flight over North Macedonia, in a mission that was carried out by an F-16 from the Hellenic Tactical Air Force's 110 Combat Wing, based in Larissa.

The purpose of the mission was to locate any radar blank sectors and to test the compatibility of reconnaissance systems.

North Macedonia-based Plus Info website is reporting on Tuesday that the goal of the flyovers was to check the communication and radar coverage of the North Macedonia airspace.

This serves to prepare and fulfill the conditions of North Macedonia's future full-fledged membership in NATO and its "collective security system," the North Macedonia Ministry of Defense has announced.

A motorcycle rally is being planned in downtown Thessaloniki on Tuesday afternoon to express support for hunger-striking terrorist Dimitris Koufodinas, whose request for a seventh furlough was turned down last week.

Police in North Macedonia say they have discovered eight migrants crammed into a hidden compartment in the roof of a truck, during a routine search at the border crossing with Serbia.

The Iraqi men were found before midnight Sunday in a truck with Bulgarian license plates.

Hahn, who is in charge of enlargement negotiations and neighborhood policy, at the same time stressed that North Macedonia is "a positive example in the region that problems can be resolved."

Viktor Gaber, the diplomat and head of North Macedonia's team in the joint commission with Greece, has told BIRN that the commission of historians, archaeologists, sociologists and political science experts has already laid the grounds for its future work that will involve revising history books in both countries.

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