Skopje, 20 September 2021 (MIA) – The Foreign Ministry (MFA) is not in charge of issuing security clearance and it also has no capacity to conduct security vetting because it’s the job of security services, Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Dimitrov said Monday. He was answering a reporter’s question in Skopje in relation to the arrest of a Macedonian diplomat in Serbia after an international arrest warrant against him had been issued. Namely, the diplomat Mile Milenkovski, who served as deputy head of North Macedonia’s OSCE Mission to Vienna, was arrested for being involved in a scandal in Armenia. Two other people were arrested. His diplomatic duties have been suspended after the arrest. Milenkovski is currently in extradition jail in Serbia since early September. Since the news of the arrest was revealed, Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani has announced an extraordinary vetting of diplomats. A working group has been set up to review the situation involving the issuance of security clearance and similar documents to be determined whether the Foreign Ministry’s security and confidentiality has been at risk following the diplomatic scandal. Dimitrov, who served as foreign minister from 2017 until 2020 before being succeeded by Bujar Osmani, said the Foreign Ministry has reports about the case and every staff member have their career dossier. The handover of duties [in September 2020], he said, lasted some 30 minutes and Osmani and I discussed some major issues, exchanged advice, etc. The Deputy PM stressed that the relevant security agencies had been notified about the scandal once it was hinted that the Interior Ministry was starting an investigation. According to the law on issuing of passports, Dimitrov explained, Foreign Ministry staff members who are awarded diplomatic status have diplomatic passports. They should hand over their diplomatic passports once they have been stripped of security clearance. “The [Foreign] Ministry has no legal jurisdiction to issue or strip someone of clearance, it’s the duty of security agencies, that’s the system,” the Deputy PM reiterated. In a press release regarding the arrest of the Macedonian diplomat in Serbia following an Interpol warrant, the National Security Agency said Monday that the process for issuing of security clearance is conducted in line with a procedure clearly regulated under a law after a request is sent to the directorate for classified information security in accordance with the law on classified information. “Following a review of security clearance procedures, it was concluded that from the day of the establishment of the National Security Agency (Sept. 1, 2019) until the day of the arrest of M. Milenkoski (Aug. 27, 2021), the directorate for classified information security hadn’t sent a request for a security checkup neither for Milenkovski nor for the other two persons. It was also revealed that only Milenkovski had valid security clearance until his arrest in Serbia, which was issued based on a level two security checkup conducted by the former administration for security and counterintelligence on Feb. 9, 2019,” the Agency said in the press release.