VMRO-DPMNE called on Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to make public the friendship agreement which he said he will sign with Bulgaria at the traditional Ilinden Uprising celebration on August 2nd. In a press release, VMRO-DPMNE says that Zaev and his SDSM party are hiding the text of the agreement because it is harmful to Macedonian national interests.
"His actions and willingness to accept a damaging agreement has sparked statements that undermine the Macedonian state. We heard comments from SDS coalition partners that the Ilinden Uprising had a Bulgarian character, we saw Bulgarian football fans slogans that Macedonia is Bulgarian, we hear comments that there is no Macedonian language or history and the statement from Bozidar Dimitrov that this agreement will put an end to what he calls the 'theory of Macedonism'", VMRO-DPMNE writes in its press release. VMRO-DPMNE refers to SDSM as SDS, omitting the letter M that stands for Macedonia.
Macedonia and Bulgaria have negotiated the agreement of friendship for a long time, and Bulgaria elevated the signing of this agreement as its condition for Macedonia to open European Union accession talks, which are already blocked by Greece over similar historic issues. VMRO-DPMNE also condemned the announcement coming after Zaev's visit to Bulgaria that Macedonian history books will be purged from elements that could be seen as negative to Bulgaria, saying that it can open a process of engineering the Macedonian nation and state.
"We support building of good neighborly relations with all our neighbors, based on mutual respect, but we will never accept something that is damaging to the Macedonian state and national interests", VMRO-DPMNE adds in its press release.
