Skopje, 17 October 2024 (MIA) — Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Thursday there was no political partisanship in the Agency for National Security and the newly appointed director Bojan Hristovski had been wronged in the past by not being given a security clearance certificate, an injustice that has now been corrected.

According to PM Mickoski, when the Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence was transformed into an Agency for National Security, some former senior staff profiled people and tried to harm them through slander and rumors.

"The injustice that Bojan Hristovski suffered, by not being given a security certificate initially, is what revealed the abuse of power by part of the leadership of the Agency for National Security," Mickoski said.

Details would soon be released, he said, on how the agency had been abused for partisan and personal purposes in the past.

"Then, after that wrong was righted, Bojan Hristovski received a security certificate. I see absolutely no reason that a person who has spent almost his entire career in the security sector should not be successful in the Agency for National Security top post," the PM said.

On Wednesday, the government dismissed the agency's director Zarko Miloshevski and appointed Bojan Hristovski to the directorial post.

Hristovski has had many years' experience in security institutions. For a short while, he was director of the Skopje public parking company. He was working at the Interior Ministry before his appointment to the Agency for National Security top position.

Earlier on Thursday, SDSM said that by appointing Hristovski director, "Mickoski and DPMNE's government is introducing dangerous partisanship in the agency and key security institutions."

"The new director of the Agency for National Security is actually VMRO-DPMNE's City Committee chairman. This violates the Law on the Agency for National Security, which clearly says the agency director cannot be a member of a political party," SDSM MP Mile Taleski told a press conference.

Hristovski had chaired the VMRO-DPMNE City Committee until 2023 and having held such a high party office until recently, Taleski said, he had been appointed agency director in a way that was "partisan, unprofessional and in violation of law and international standards, especially those of NATO." mr/

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