site.btaMRF Floor Leader Peevski Demands Apology from Skopje "for Arrogance"

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) floor leader Delyan Peevski on Wednesday urged North Macedonia to apologize to Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people for what he described as "one more outrageous and inadmissible instance of arrogance shown by the pro-Russian Mickoski regime."

In a televised interview earlier in the day, North Macedonia's Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski joined an outcry in his country against the absence of the national flag of North Macedonia in a photo of Presidents Rumen Radev and Gordana Siljanovska during Siljanovska's visit to Bulgaria on September 13. Nikoloski said the hosts were disrespectful to President Siljanovska.

Reacting to Nikoloski's remarks, Peevski said in a media statement: "The Republic of North Macedonia should receive an unambivalent response from the Bulgarian state." Peevski proposed an immediate recall of the North Macedonia Ambassador from Bulgaria "until Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people receive a satisfactory apology for the insults."

"It should be made clear that we will not tolerate such treatment from anyone anymore, the less so from a government which claims that their country, for which Bulgaria has done so much by way of support over the years, belongs in the European family," he said.