Skopje, 21 July 2025 (MIA) — The government's foreign policy is based on promoting Macedonian interests and not Serbian ones, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Timcho Mucunski told a press conference Monday.

Mucunski made the remarks in response to a question about allegations that the government was pushing the country toward the "Serbian world."

Former top government officials were accusing him of pushing Serbian interests although many of them, including former President Stevo Pendarovski, had met with their Serbian counterparts a record number of times, he said.

"Former President Pendarovski has had the most bilateral meetings with his Serbian counterpart," the foreign minister said.

"We are a Macedonian world. We aim to spread our own foreign policy interests. The people whose only feature was to give in on anything — whose foreign policy's feature was to give in to any neighbor and to any member state — those people don't have the legitimacy to judge what we have done to protect the national interests of our country and the people who live in it," Mucunski said.

"After all, let citizens ask themselves if they believe more in our government's current foreign policy or if they think the foreign policy of the previous, SDSM and DUI-led government was better," he told reporters.

Mucunski said there was intense public debate on this recently but there should be no dilemmas regarding the government's strategic goals.

"This government in its first year signed a defense and security partnership deal with the EU, the first in the region," he said.

"This government, with me as foreign minister, has signed a strategic partnership deal with the UK. We signed a strategic partnership with Hungary. I was and I am the only foreign minister from the Western Balkans to have been received by State Secretary Marco Rubio at the Department of State," he said.

"We are among those who are the most engaged in ongoing projects with the administration in Washington, but it is a fact we also have the duty to cooperate with our region and our neighbors, with all European countries," Mucunski said.

The country's top diplomat said he had first heard the "Serbian world" claim from Pendarovski, who Mucunski said had met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic nine times during his five-year term in office, "more than with any other president."

"Former prime ministers from the ranks of the SDSM had over 25 bilateral meetings with their Serbian counterparts in a period of seven years," the foreign minister said.

He said former foreign minister Bujar Osmani had met with counterparts in Serbia 11 times over four years.

"I am not judging this as good or bad as foreign minister, but we need to cooperate with everyone," Mucunski said. 

"You cannot speak against engaging with any of our neighbors after having historic numbers of meetings with those very representatives," he said. mr/

Фото: МИА