Skopje has proposed to Sofia that we leave the talks about the period before 1944 to the historians and dedicate ourselves to the present, North Macedonia’s President Stevo Pendarovski said for TV24. In his view, “the politicians do not like to get involved in discussions on who we have been and what we have been”.

President Pendarovski rejected the proposal of Greece’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias to mediate between Sofia and Skopje. “I doubt that a third Balkan country would be regarded as an independent mediator in a typical Balkan dispute”, Stevo Pendarovski contends. In his words, the best mediators in Balkan affairs are powerful and distant countries, BGNES reports.