Unfriendly steps of North Macedonia prevent commission’s meeting — Russian ambassador

MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. Unfriendly steps taken by Skopje do not allow resuming the activity of the Russian-Macedonian intergovernmental commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation, new Russian Ambassador to North Macedonia Dmitry Zykov told TASS in his first interview. North Macedonia has sided with all the EU restrictive measures against Russia since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, which affected mutual trade, Zykov said. "Starting from 2022, when the trade turnover totaled $495 mln, foreign trade between the countries plunged by three times, including the fivefold dip of Russian exports," the Ambassador noted. "Russia, in response to actions of the Macedonian side, included North Macedonia into the list of unfriendly countries and suspended its participation in the Russian-Macedonian intergovernmental commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation, with its last ninth meeting held in November 2019 and the meeting of co-chairs - in June 2021," Zykov said. "Obviously, the resumption of commission’s activities does not appear possible under the recent level of relations between the countries," he added.