North Macedonia's FM urges EU to start accession negotiations

Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-23 01:31:17|Editor: yan
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BUCHAREST, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Visiting North Macedonia's Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov on Wednesday called on the European Union (EU) to soon start the accession negotiations with his country.

North Macedonia has solved its issues in its relations with all of its neighbors, and "we operate domestically to strengthen our institutions and we want the rule of law to reign in our society," Dimitrov told a press briefing with his Romanian counterpart Teodor Melescanu.

"It is necessary that the EU does what it has to do, meaning to acknowledge and decide that we start the accession negotiations," he said, specifying that the Balkan country wanted to have a first inter-governmental conference by the end of this year.

For his part, Melescanu reiterated Romania's commitment to the further expansion of the EU, saying: "We have both decided to boost collaboration in both the political-diplomatic field and in new domains of sector cooperation capable to seriously substantiate our bilateral relations."

According to Melescanu, he just signed with his North Macedonian counterpart a Memorandum of Cooperation between the two foreign ministries in the field of European integration, which includes provisions relevant for the European path of North Macedonia and the support that Romania is ready to grant.

Greece and North Macedonia had resolved a longstanding row over the use of the name Macedonia earlier this year.

Since 1991, when the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) declared independence from Yugoslavia and chose the name Macedonia, the same name of a province in northern Greece, Greeks protested, fearing territorial claims by the new Balkan state.

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