Danijel Server, an expert on regional issues and conflict resolution at the Washington Institute for Peace, said today in Ohrid that he believes that the era of division of the Balkans is over and that this is the time of reintegration.
At the conference on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Ohrid Agreement, which ended the armed conflict in Macedonia in 2001, Server said that activities should be directed towards maintaining the state structure of the Balkans as it is today.
The meeting in Ohrid was also attended by American diplomat James Perđu, ten years ago a mediator in the negotiations between the Macedonian authorities and the rebel Albanians.
Pointing out that there have been four wars in the region, he assessed that a fifth would have happened in Macedonia if there had been no Ohrid agreement.
The two-day conference that ends today was not attended by the signatories of the agreement, Branko Crvenkovski - now the leader of the Social Democratic Alliance, Arben Džaferi - the former leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians, and the then Prime Minister, leader of VMRO DPMNE Ljupco Georgievski, and the current current Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski did not attend either.
Bonus video:
