“Ivan Stoillkoviq, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia, will also be proposed for Deputy Prime Minister and Minister overseeing the portfolio for Inter-Community Relations,” stated Hristijan Mickoski on Sunday.
The man who referred to the UN Resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica as a “necrophiliac Disneyland” will be the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister in Mickoski’s government responsible for Inter-Community Relations.
But that is not all. If you search online about him, you’ll read about his closeness to the Russian Federation and his sympathy for Vučić’s policies regarding Kosova.
As recently as May 2023, he participated in the Security Forum held in Moscow, where the President of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, and the Director of the Serbian Security and Information Agency, Aleksandar Vulin, were also present.
However, Stoillkoviq’s cooperation with the Russians dates back even further. In 2018, he was part of a delegation of parliamentary parties from Macedonia that met with the Deputy Secretary of the General Council of the United Russia party, Sergei Zheleznyak. After the meeting, the media reported that “the development of political, economic, and cultural cooperation, as well as the importance of preserving and strengthening spiritual ties between Russia and Macedonia, were the topics of discussion.”
Stoillkoviq’s appointment will be proposed to Parliament tomorrow, but whether anyone will have the strength to stop it remains to be seen.
Zeqirija Ibrahimi from the VLEN coalition, which will also be part of the government, when asked about this appointment by Daily Click, said it is not good news and they do not endorse it, but hinted that they cannot stop it.
“We are not the ones who should take on matters that are not within our competence, just as we do not allow Mr. Mickoski to decide who will become a minister from VLEN, and we do not have any claims to tell him to make this or that person a minister, because his cabinet includes many exponents from other parties. Surely, Stoillkoviq’s rhetoric is not suitable for us as Albanians, nor for the state of North Macedonia, nor for the circumstances of good neighbourly relations with Kosova,” said Ibrahimi.
The Ministry for Inter-Community Relations has so far been led by Artan Grubi. This ministry is obliged to ensure the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement, a framework that has regulated inter-ethnic relations in North Macedonia since 2001. In a reaction on Facebook, the vice president of the DUI, Arbër Ademi, wrote that “the Ohrid Agreement is for the first time since 2001 in the hands of a Serb with Putinist beliefs! The change has just begun!”
Moreover, two Bosniak entities in the country, the Bosniak Democratic Union and the Bosniak National Council Association, have filed criminal charges against Stoillkoviq for denying and mocking the genocide in Srebrenica.
