North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski has voiced full support for the United States’ actions in Venezuela, including its arrest of President Nicolas Maduro, while criticizing what he described as selective concern over violations of international law.
Speaking to journalists in Skopje, Mickoski said he was more troubled by what he called the “deafening silence” of European and other countries in the past, when he argued that international law had been violated against North Macedonia and its people.
“I am more concerned about the deafening silence of the same European and other countries when, in the past, international law was violated against Macedonia and the Macedonian people, and no one spoke up,” he said. “Now, suddenly, everyone is discussing whether international law is being violated. I would leave this issue to international law experts.”
Asked whether the US actions could set a “bad precedent” that might be applied elsewhere, Mickoski said the real bad precedents were changes that he claimed had been imposed on his country.
“A bad precedent was changing the flag to enable UN membership. A bad precedent was amending the constitution and changing the constitutional name, with the promise that in three or four years we would become members of the European Union and NATO,” he said. “These are truly bad precedents.”
The prime minister also referred to a 2011 ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which found in favor of what was then the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, saying that despite the verdict, his country continued to face obstruction without reaction from the international community.
“There was a decision by the Hague Court that Macedonia should not have been hindered, yet it was hindered, and again there was silence from those who today speak about violations of international law and bad precedents,” Mickoski said.
Concluding his remarks, he said that his government fully supports “the arguments and actions of our strategic partner, the United States of America.”