Macedonia's Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski, who is staying in New York at Cyrus Vance's invitation, expected to meet with the UN mediator in the Macedonian-Greek dispute again yesterday. In the telephone discussion for "Nova Makedonija," in relation to the question as to whether negotiations were going on and if there was any progress in the settlement of the problems between the two countries, Crvenkovski said that he was attending a line of consultative meetings, all with the purpose of reaching some kind of progress in the continuation of the direct negotiations. Minister Crvenkovski stressed that for now, no concrete initiatives are being discussed, adding that the Macedonian stances regarding the negotiations are well-known - Macedonia will not accept talks under the pressure of an embargo.
Minister Crvenkovski informed "Nova Makedonija" that he held two meetings with Vance and that the visit in New York was used also for contacts with representatives at the UN headquarters, which centered on the situation in the region, foremost, the crisis in Bosnia and possible repercussions from its intensification.
Crvenkovski denied ever meeting with the Greek representative Hristos Zaharakis, or that he would remain in New York for "an indefinite period of time."
"Greece has an interest in the existence of the 'Skopje Republic,'" the Greek Defence Minister Gerasimos Arsenis said at the Parliamentary session in Paris.
The Greek press reports that Arsenis spoke about providing the basic conditions for good neighborly relations, after which, as he said, "the procedure for normalization of the relations can start."
In an attempt to soften criticism over the Greek embargo, as Makfaks reports, Arsenis said that "a lot of goods" crossed the Greek-Macedonian border, and that the blockade only applied to raw materials from the sphere of energy.
The Assembly of the Western European Union discussed the situation in former Yugoslavia yesterday. The members of the Macedonian Parliament Nano Ruzhin and Panche Nasev, who took part in this conference as observers, also gave their contributions in the document.
Eight items from the document deal with the situation in Macedonia, with a conclusion that "the situation in FYROM continues to be unstable and many Macedonian politicians are convinced that Belgrade and Athens are coordinating their political activities against Skopje."
The part related to the upholding of the UN sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro contains a figure of some 5,000 trucks and 1,200 tanks that have crossed from Macedonia into Serbia in the first six months of this year, carrying mostly chemicals and metals, while some 4,500 trucks and 1,500 train wagons carrying furniture, tractors and shoes, entered Macedonia from Serbia. Which ever way, the document says that "the U.S. and the EU have given up attempts to reinforce the sanctions in Macedonia, since the state is already suffering enormously as a result of the economic embargo from Greece."
The BBC program in Albanian language, quoting an anonymous Macedonian senior official, broadcast the news about a forthcoming meeting between the presidents of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania, in Ohrid.
The meeting would focus on the East-West corridor. So far, Kiro Gligorov and Zhelyu Zhelev have consented to this meeting, while the Albanian President Sali Berisha has yet to voice his answer. In Tirana, this news has not been denied, or confirmed. This news is also not confirmed in Skopje.
A border incident took place on June 16, near the village Zhirovnica, when a group of ten Albanian citizens tried to illegally cross the Macedonian border. According to the spokesman Petar Atanasov, approximately 300 meters inside Macedonian territory, one person from the group fired a shot in the direction of the border patrol of the Macedonian army. As a sign of warning, the soldiers from the patrol fired back. Luckily, there were no victims or wounded in the incident, and the soldiers managed to apprehend eight of the men, who were surrendered to the Interior Ministry.
In the last five months this year, a total of 884 illegal crossings were registered on all borders, of which the most - 386, took place on the Macedonian-Albanian border.
220 crossings have been registered toward neighboring FRY, 207 toward Greece and 61 illegal crossings toward Bulgaria.
The goods confiscated from people caught trying to illegally cross the borders amounted to 100,000 DM, in addition to 70 tones of fuel and 40 tones of flour, the Ministry of Defense reports.
As part of the cooperation between the humanitarian association "Mother Teresa" from Struga and institutions from Korcha, Albania, 10 students, Albanians from Macedonia will be enrolled in the High School of Arts in Korcha, in the '95 -'96 school year.
This week's the top subject among the Macedonian public is the announced cooperation between the VMRO-DPMNE and the PDP , that was mentioned on Monday ((20 June)), during the visit of the VMRO-DPMNE leadership to the Assembly of the Tetovo Commune. As it has been already reported, Ljupco Georgievski ((VMRO-DPMNE leader)) stated that his party is opened for cooperation with the Party for Democratic Prosperity, through coalitions on the level of communal assemblies. The explanation for this was that such a coalition already exists in the Kicevo Assembly, and that an identical cooperation will follow in the Tetovo Assembly, as well as in the Skopje Municipality. Ljupco Georgievski repeated his statement to our newspaper two days later, emphasizing that such a cooperation will contribute to a greater stabilization of Macedonia on the interethnic plan. Abdurahman Aliti, the PDP leader, said that this is an inter-party concordance of the interests on a local level, that is that there will be talks on coalition on the communal level wherever delegates of the VMRO- DPMNE and of the PDP dominate. Both presidents agreed that all hitherto inter-party discussions had been led on a lower level, without the participation of the parties' top leaderships.
The possible coalition between the VMRO-DPMNE and the PDP, regardless of the degree, level, or form, has attracted significant attention, because it is a definitely known that numberless debates in the former assembly had demonstrated that these political parties have diametrically opposite stances and views on many vital state or national interest. Let us not mention that each one of these two parties has been building its political image in the past by launching attacks and disqualification against the other party, referring to it as to its strongest political opponent. Actually, a great number of the VMRO-DPMNE leaders have, on many occasions, stressed the danger of the Albanian factor for Macedonia, while the PDP has often spoken about the threat of Macedonian nationalism personified in the VMRO-DPMNE.
Reactions were, normally, expected from the respectable milieus. Such reactions first arrived from the VMRO-DPMNE branch in Tetovo, which disagreed with its presidency's stance. We have unofficially found out that other communal committees of the party reacted to the announced possibility for cooperation with the Party for Democratic Prosperity as well. It is now becoming clear that the background is the election of the Skopje mayor, and the possible combinations for a joint action of the delegates of the VMRO-DPMNE and the PDP.
Vladimir Golubovski, the coordinator of the new election coalition VMRO-United enlightened this at a news conference two days ago. He sees the announced cooperation between the VMRO- DPMNE and the PDP -- in the context of the election of the new Skopje mayor -- as a dramatic step toward destabilization of Macedonia. Golubovski called the VMRO-DPMNE leaders "traitors", because they put themselves at the service of a befogging concept of the PDP which, according to him, basically remains unchanged and is directed against the most vital Macedonian national and state interests.
Ilijaz Halimi, president of the People's Democratic Party ((NDP)) has an interesting view on the same issue. In his opinion, it is obvious that the VMRO-DPMNE, with such a coalition, is trying to get any power possible which is of vital interest for it. Halimi has doubts on how successful this might turn out, but he says that it is clear that every party entering a coalition has, first of all, its party's interest in mind. The leader of the NDP thinks that the reason why the PDP is entering this coalition is because they realized that their coalition with the Alliance for Macedonia brought them nothing, and therefore, now they hope to get more, although only on the level of local authority. Halimi concludes that this initiative only shows that there is less moral and honor in policy-making today.
It is a fact that the announced cooperation between the VMRO-DPMNE and the PDP, regardless of its internal party character, opens and creates some interesting and unusual situations. For instance, we must not overlook the fact that the PDP is already in coalition with the government, in which it has four ministers. This is why it is interesting to hear the opinion of the SDSM ((Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia)) secretary Ljupco Popovski, who thinks that pragmatism in policy makes sense as long as it does not turn into fraud against one's own voters and members. "While the PDP is interested in cooperation on a local level, the VMRO-DPMNE is more in favor of a stronger coalition, including joint participation in the future parliamentary elections," Popovski says. "This VMRO-DPMNE view came as a shocking surprise to its voters, because this party was the main promoter of the anti-Albanian inclination in Macedonia, which was the focal point of its program and party actions in the past period," he says.
It was also interesting to hear the opinion of the representatives of the Liberal Party ((LP)), whose delegates in the Skopje Assembly, after the announced coalition between the VMRO-DPMNE and the PDP, remain empty-handed in the division of the local power. This question was addressed to the deputy president of the LP Risto Ivanov, at a news conference that was held yesterday on the occasion of the forthcoming assembly of the party, but unfortunately, he did not want his meeting with journalists to be burdened with questions that were not related to the forthcoming LP summit. He briefly replied that it is the right of the parties to make political assessments on all feasible coalitions and inter-party cooperations. "Our general view is that in this state everyone has the right to communicate and cooperate provided that there are such interests, and that is up to the parties to decide," Ivanov said.
As for the president of the Democratic Party Petar Gosev, this coalition is not a surprise because he claims that the partners in the Government do not function as one body anyway, but that the PDP, the SDSM, and the LP formed this "alliance" ((Alliance for Macedonia)) strictly to hold on to power. "It is logical to believe that when two parties make a coalition, they have at least a minimum common platform. The question now is how some parties can make a coalition if, until that moment, they had diametrically opposite views on fundamental questions? It is up to them, and I would not like to comment on this," Gosev pointed out.
Tomislav Stojanovski, the president of the Democratic Party of Macedonia ((in Tetovo)) gave a very strong commentary on the occasion of the latest coalition formed on "his" turf. "The announced coalition is not a surprise because we constantly hear stances and opinions from the VMRO-DPMNE and the PDP which have one thing in common -- it is a befogged attempt to destabilize the state, and this was also indicated by in their opposition to Macedonia's admission to the Council of Europe," Stojanovski categorically claims. "The cards are on the table," he emphasizes, "and it is now obvious that there is no cost for obtaining power and that all other interests are of secondary value. It is fortunate that the VMRO-DPMNE has finally disclosed its long-range strategy and the citizens will be able to judge the real intentions of 'the most national' party in Macedonia." The men of know say that a great number of fans and members of the VMRO-DPMNE in Tetovo will be strongly afflicted by the action of their leader, for which they claim "will not bring success here," while the DPM is waiting for them, the disappointed, with outstretched hands.
Otherwise, the experimental phase of the agreement for public booths, which was signed on the 10th of this month, has been determined for 10 weeks from the signing, following which, provided all the conditions are met, they second part of the project will start. It has been agreed for the display to be in Macedonia language, in the Cyrillic alphabet (in addition to the English writing), which will cost the PTT US$ 90 per booth. The overall deal is valued at US$ 800,000.
The agreement for the sale of the "Prilep Brewery" was signed at the Privatization Agency yesterday. The sale will be done according to the management buy-out model.
The Agency sent out its public call on April 17th, this month. Only one group of 10 persons from the current management of the brewery submitted an offer within the prescribed period.
The managers of the brewery have taken on the obligation to pay the sum of 3,200,498 DM within 5 years, or a total of 12,463 shares with a nominal value of 256.8 DM each. So far, the buyers have bought 35.97% of the total number of company shares, 15% of the untransformed state-owned capital or 2,473 shares have been transferred to the Fund for Pension and Invalid Insurance, and a part of the shares are reserved for the realization of the rights of the former owners.
The company is estimated at 10 million DM, and 57.51% has been privatized thus far.