The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted in connection with the monument to 193 Bulgarian soldiers killed in World War I., near the route of the expressway Gradsko-Prilep, section "Farish - Drenovo", Kavadarci, for which, as he states, accusations appeared in the media against the Republic of Northern Macedonia.

In continuation, we convey the reaction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in full:

"According to the report of the Office for Protection of Cultural Heritage - Ministry of Culture, and the Public Enterprise for State Roads - Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Northern Macedonia, which made an extraordinary inspection, the following was concluded:

First, the main monument does not fall under any regime of protected monument or cultural heritage, but even without it it is in good condition, without damage; Second, around the monument there is agricultural land that is cultivated in a way that bypasses this landmark; Third, the monument is outside the planned zone for the performance of permanent works, it is not affected by any construction work and after the field inspection it was concluded that it is without visible damage.

The situation on the ground shows that currently the monument is physically separated from the route on which construction works are being carried out on the Expressway Gradsko - Prilep with a temporary protective fence that will be replaced with a permanent protective fence provided by the Basic Design project.

After the construction of this fence, the free space between it and the monument will be about 4 meters. Upon completion of the works, there will be access space to the monument, in order to make it accessible to interested visitors

Fourth, there are no cemeteries or graves around this monument, and according to the field inspection, such a situation is not known if it was different in the past. About 100 meters from this monument, it was concluded that there is a second smaller landmark, whose memory is unknown.

With the established factual situation by the competent institutions, we want to reject all accusations that have appeared in public, while appealing to all individuals and institutions involved to be careful and not to succumb to obvious provocations whose intention is to jeopardize good neighborly relations between the two countries, and the efforts of the two Ministries to find common solutions to overcome the differences.

"It is especially worrying that the trend of such speculations has been intensifying lately, which shows that this is an organized approach to their abuse, for which we want to further warn of caution and responsible behavior."

Source: MIA

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