On the evening of January 19 in Ohrid, the secretary of the Bulgarian club in the Macedonian city Hristiyan Pendikov was beaten.

He was transported on January 20 by the Bulgarian government "Falcon" for treatment in Bulgaria.

He is in the intensive care unit of the VMA.

Pendikov was visited yesterday by the foreign ministers of North Macedonia and Bulgaria - Buyar Osmani and Nikolay Milkov.

All about the topic:

Relations Bulgaria - Republic of Macedonia 785

RSM Foreign Minister Buyar Osmani gave an interview to bTV:

- Mr. Osmani, what did you see in the hospital, how is Christian?

- Yes, together with Minister Milkov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we visited Hristiyan in the hospital.

We also had the opportunity to talk with him.

I think they are planning to go into surgery tomorrow after his condition is assessed.

I also met with his family, with his mother - all this in order to wish him a speedy recovery, but also to express regret for this incident.

As well as sending a message that this cannot and should not happen again.

– What did you say to Christian and his mother?

- First what I said before - wish for a speedy recovery.

And of course, now to focus only on the health one, and then we will sit together and think about the other aspects of this case.

I informed him that the perpetrators were already brought to justice.

One of the persons is already in custody.

And that we are already working on revealing the others.

And that we will not allow such events of violence to be the answer to any problem, least of all to issues related to inter-ethnic coexistence, the way people define themselves, people and citizens in the Republic of North Macedonia.

– You said that the perpetrators have already been identified.

It became clear that three days before Hristiyan was beaten, he was threatened and filed a complaint with the police in Ohrid.

What did the Macedonian police do about this complaint, do you know?

- Look, probably the Ministry of Internal Affairs will have to give these details, because an investigation is currently underway.

We await the completion of this investigation.

What is important to me is that the perpetrators have already been identified, that they have already been arrested.

Because it is important to send a message about prosecuting such acts of violence.

- Do you know why this attack was carried out on Hristiyan Pendikov?

- I think we should wait 

, but what is important to me is what Hristian himself and the victim's mother say, and that is that the reason is the manifestation, the expression on his part of ethnicity.

Although the perpetrators say otherwise - that they had some differences before, what the victim and his parents have to say is important to me.

And that is why I said today – we must break this cycle of provocations and violence.

- It is clear from your words that it is still possible that the attack was categorically because of his Bulgarian self-awareness.

– That's what the investigation will show, it will probably confirm that.

But this vicious cycle of mutual provocation that ends in violence is something we must break.

We are working with the Bulgarian government on an intense, positive agenda, but it is obvious that there are people on both sides - for example, a few days ago we had Bulgarian politicians in the center of Skopje, who deny the existence of the Macedonian people, insult the people in the capital of the country .

And of course, I don't put this in the context of any justification, because violence cannot be a justification for anything, not even hate speech.

But it is important that the majority of citizens in North Macedonia, and I believe also in Bulgaria, the governments of both countries, have a different agenda - they want friendship, they want partnership, they want cooperation.

There is a small group of provocateurs,

– You said you would not allow impunity.

The cultural center in the center of Ohrid was the target of another attack at the end of November last year - it was shot at.

How far did the investigation go in this case?

- I hope that the Ministry of the Interior will come up with specific details to answer your question as well.

But the main message is this - in the Republic of North Macedonia there should be zero tolerance for such acts of violence, because this is not even hate speech.

- That is, there are no arrests and convictions yet for the shooting at the cultural center in Ohrid?

- I don't have, yes, I don't have such information.

- A few months ago, the Macedonian parliament adopted legal changes according to which cultural clubs in the country cannot have "controversial names".

Does this mean that the Bulgarian cultural institutions in North Macedonia have to close their doors if this law comes into force?

- The Bulgarian community in North Macedonia is in a period of consolidation, of showing off and integrating into society.

Considering the fact that I also come from a minority group, which at the beginning also had problems with its unification and integration, I feel most strongly called to advise the Bulgarian community that we should do this process carefully, without causing negative feelings in the rest that there is any malice in any initiatives.

We encourage the Bulgarian community to unite in clubs, to open more clubs.

– But they have to choose other names, is that what we're supposed to understand?

- It is obvious that the names that were chosen, regardless of how historically and scientifically we will interpret the roles of these individuals in history, the feeling, the feeling to a greater extent in North Macedonia is that these names are provocations.

This is enough.

As I said about Hristiyan's case, I don't care what the investigation says.

It is important to me that Christian's parent says that he was attacked because of his Bulgarian ethnicity.

And for me, this is enough for me to come to Sofia today and fix a message.

The Bulgarian community should feel the same.

We need not enter into a real scholarly debate about the role of these historical figures.

And believe that this is in the interest of the Bulgarian community.

I say this as someone who has gone through similar difficulties in community unification and integration.

- That is, if the Bulgarian clubs in North Macedonia with the names "Ivan Mihailov" and "Tsar Boris III" want to continue to exist, they should change their names?

- That's what the law says.

I'll be consistent - I personally had qualms about the retroactivity of certain parts of the law.

But the decision of the assembly is such that the names should not be associated with periods such as the fascist period of the second world war, which hurt the feelings of the citizens.

And the clubs will have to do it.

After the coming week, I plan to invite the Bulgarian associations to a gathering, where we will make a plan on how to make it possible for the Bulgarian community to declare its belonging, its identity and cultural belonging, to integrate into society.

I have the experience, I have the will and the state also has the will to help the Bulgarian community integrate.

- It is wonderful that you will invite the representatives of the Bulgarian clubs.

I will not surprise you if I tell you that a part of the Bulgarian community in North Macedonia claims that it is the object of aggression not only from people on the street, but also from state institutions.

And a very specific example - at the end of last year - the Commission for Protection against Discrimination of the RSM entered with representatives of the authorities in the cultural club in Bitola "Ivan Mihailov" and a report was written, which was signed by the director of the commission.

On the basis of this report, Lyupcho Georgievski, who is the chairman of the cultural club, was called and it was explained to him that he might be charged

"I don't know if you've been there."

When you enter the Bitola club there is a large poster on the wall with a quote from a speech by Ivan Mihailov, in which he says: "...the so-called Macedonian people".

This hurts the feelings of the Macedonian people in the same way that this Facebook post by Bendevska hurts the feelings of the Bulgarian people.

And I think it's perfectly normal for you to feel offended if there really was malice in this post.

My goal is to break this cycle, not to look for who started it first.

No one can forbid the Bulgarians, the Bulgarian community in North Macedonia, to define themselves as Bulgarians, to organize themselves in political parties, to create clubs, to integrate into the system as Bulgarians.

I believe that maybe there is discrimination, I can't rule it out.

Because I speak from my experience - they said the same thing 20 years ago - there is no discrimination against other communities.

But there was.

There is none now because there was a certain period of inclusion.

I claim that there is no systematic discrimination.

There is no political decision in any institution by which the institutions were instructed to discriminate against Bulgarians.

- However, I will remind you of one case that cannot be qualified as individual - in the summer of last year, while the negotiations were going on in Skopje on whether to accept the so-called French proposal to start negotiations on the European integration of North Macedonia, repeatedly during the street protests the Bulgarians were insulted.

Will someone be held accountable for this?

Photo: btvnovinite.bg

- Already in the protocol we agreed with Bulgaria, we provided mechanisms on how to monitor the language of hate and how to take measures.

For example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the main point that monitors attitudes related to hate speech and informs immediately.

We even have a precise mechanism of who informs whom about such cases to create an atmosphere of prosecution of such actions.

There are other steps that will be taken.

From a separate hate speech prosecutor that we are now talking to the prosecutor's office about.

These are all mechanisms that will begin and are already functioning to interrupt these processes.

But we must look at the whole process - the provocations from both sides must stop.

I am telling you that any possible discrimination, any speech of hatred towards the Bulgarians in North Macedonia must stop today and the institutions must take measures to show that this attitude will not be allowed.

But you should also want to stop this trend of Bulgarian politicians coming to the center of Skopje, who deny the existence of an entire people, the identity of the citizens, because then we enter into the dispute: Who started first?

Let's break this today.

Relations between Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia