“Your country fired tear gas on many people, many of them were children. Now I’m just wandering, is that why you went into politics for?” Provocatively asked the BBC journalist from Newsnight to Nikola Poposki, the Foreign Minister to Macedonia.
“I don’t think this is a fair judgment”, replied Poposki.
According to the Foreign Minister, Macedonia is trying to implement all the decisions brought by the Council of the Europe Union, namely, to prevent illegal crossings on the Southern border and provide shelters to migrants that want to register.
“Imagine that you are part of the security forces and you are faced with a situation where you have a violent attempt by a several hundred young male’s people, to enter your territory, without willing to register or go to reception centres, I don’t think this is line with what we have agreed upon on a European level. If you ask me, I think the easiest thing for Macedonia is to simply pull out, and let all the migrants cross Macedonia on their way to Western European countries, it is precisely what EU Member States have been lobbying against. They essentially have said that they want to have a comprehensive migration system, where they have credible asylum seekers who will have to register, and if they fulfill the conditions, they can continue their path to the EU. Macedonia just happens to be a country which is not part of the European Union, but is located on the main migration route”, Poposki said in answer to the question.
When asked who he thought was to blame for the situation, Poposki said that he didn’t think blame was the right formulation.
