Asked about expectations for the Sofia meeting between the foreign ministers of Macedonia and Bulgaria, Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said he did not have high expectations.
“Given the analysis I shared with the Foreign Minister yesterday, and I’ll be undiplomatic here, and considering the conduct of official Sofia, I do not expect confirmation; I do not expect anything. I anticipate a ‘pull-aside’ dialogue, and that’s about it,” Mickoski responded.
The Foreign Ministers of Macedonia and Bulgaria, Timcho Mucunski and Velislava Petrova, are scheduled to meet this Thursday in Sofia on the sidelines of an international ministerial conference regarding Corridor VIII.
The initiative for a meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers arose during the visit of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Skopje. Acting on her advice, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski asked FM Mucunski to request a meeting with Petrova in an effort to advance the process of resolving the issue surrounding Bulgaria’s blockade of Macedonia’s European integration.