Pendarovski: Any Belgrade-Pristina Settlement Providing International Guarantees Is Acceptable

Stevo Pendarovski (Betaphoto/President of Northern Macedonia Press office/Goran Georgievski/

North Macedonia’s President Stevo Pendarovski has said that he was in principle against any border changes in the Balkans, but added that any agreement to be reached between Belgrade and Pristina providing an international guarantee that it would apply only to that particular case would be acceptable.

In an interview with news TV Al Jazeera Balkans, Pendarovski said that “any agreement that will be reached between Belgrade and Pristina would be acceptable, it has to be acceptable to the entire world and to the immediate neighbors, such as North Macedonia, on the condition that such a settlement provides certain guarantees of the international community that it would have no domino effect.”

“So, a settlement to be reached between Belgrade and Pristina, with strong support of, I assume, the greatest international factors, must apply only to the deal between Belgrade and Pristina and must not serve as a principle for other countries in the region,” North Macedonia’s president specified.

Pendarovski once again stressed that generally he believed that changing borders in the Balkans could only produce problems, considering the region’s hard, long and painful history, according to a release from his office.

“In principle, any attempt to change borders in the world, for example in the U.S. or Canada, would trigger political turbulences. Generally, I oppose the idea of border changes along ethnic lines, and in the Balkans, it is a specific issue,” the president of North Macedonia explained.