Skopje, 13 August 2022 (MIA) – The leaders of the four then largest political parties, together with President Boris Trajkovski and the EU and the US representatives, 21 years ago in Ohrid signed the Framework Agreement that prevented the further escalation of the conflict and brought peace and stability as prerequisites for further democratic development of the Macedonian society, President Stevo Pendarovski wrote in the message on the 21st anniversary of the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. According to President Pendarovski, the key benefits of the agreement were the preservation of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the unitary character of the state. It laid the foundations for constitutional and legislative changes that guarantee the rights of the smaller ethnic communities. “Over the past 21 years, among other things, through the implementation of the Framework Agreement, we joined NATO and we received EU candidate country status and opened EU accession negotiations. In that process, we built a model of functional multi-ethnic democracy that preserved peace and stability and set the highest standards for community rights,” Pendarovski wrote. He underlined that today when we are witnessing a war on European soil and when we are living under the pressure of old and new security threats, we must always keep in front of our eyes one of the basic principles of the Framework Agreement, which rejects the use of violence to achieve political objectives completely and unconditionally, because only political solutions and dialogue can guarantee a stable and democratic future.