Overnight on March 15-16, 2023, unknown perpetrators broke into the building of the Bulgarian Cultural Information Center in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia. The incident caused material damage to the premises of the Centre, which opened on 25 November 2022.

Regardless of the motives of the offenders, the crime constitutes an attack against the Bulgarian state itself in the person of a state institution, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The ministry recalls that since 2003, Sofia and Skopje have signed a bilateral agreement on the opening of cultural information centres, and the two countries have made a commitment to ensure the normal functioning of these centres in the two capitals. The Bulgarian side expects the North Macedonia to identify the perpetrators of the crime and punish them with the full severity of the law.