Radev to Skopje: Stop Blaming Bulgaria, Deliver on EU Reforms
President Rumen Radev has urged North Macedonia to stop blaming Bulgaria for delays in its path toward EU membership
Politics | April 30, 2025, Wednesday // 08:13
UN Chief Alarmed by Macedonia Clashes, Urges Objective Probe
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses representatives of member states before the planting of the Weeping White Cherry Tree of Peace and Unity, to commemorate the end of WWII, at the UN headquarters in New York, 5 May 2015. EPA/BGNES
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday expressed alarm over the recent deadly clashes in Macedonia and called on the authorities in Skopje “to fully investigate the events in an objective and transparent manner”.
“At this sensitive time, the Secretary-General calls on all actors to exercise maximum restraint and to refrain from any rhetoric and/or actions that may escalate tensions further,” said a statement released by the office of Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman.
“He strongly supports the calls by the European Union and other members of the international community urging the state authorities and all political and community leaders to cooperate to restore calm,” the statement read.
The UN Secretary-General also urged the government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to foster an environment in which opposing views can be expressed freely in order to reaffirm its commitment to fundamental human rights and the rule of law.
Eight police officers and 14 gunmen were killed in the weekend clashes in Kumanovo, in northern Macedonia. Macedonia said on Sunday five Kosovars, members of the now dismantled Kosovo Liberation Army, led the armed group which fought gunbattles with security forces in a suburb of Kumanovo.
Some 40 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo briefly seized control of a police station in the Macedonian village of Gosince near the border in April, demanding the creation of an Albanian state within Macedonia. Ethnic Albanians constitute about 25% of Macedonia’s population of about two million
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