Crisis on the Belgrade-Skopje line: Vučić lost the political game against Zaev

Written by: Haris Ljevo

Serbia has decided to withdraw all employees of the Embassy in Skopje for urgent consultations in Belgrade due to, as President Aleksandar Vučić explained to the public in Serbia, a sufficient number of pieces of evidence obtained by intelligence agencies about offensive actions against the organs and institutions of Serbia, reports the Patria agency.

Vučić stated that it is Serbia's obligation to protect its interests, but that it will do everything to preserve good and friendly relations with Macedonia.

A day after Vučić's announcement of preserving friendly relations with Macedonia, Serbian media launched a fierce propaganda campaign against Macedonia and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

The daily Informer, which in Serbia is considered an unofficial bulletin of Vučić and his SNS, writes that „Macedonians are eavesdropping on everyone, even Vučić,“ while other media run headlines like „Zaev declared war on Serbia,“ „Brother Zaev stabbed us in the back“...

Such attitudes have nothing to do with friendly ties. On the contrary. Serbia is behaving extremely hostilely towards Macedonia, accusing it of the worst things without a single piece of evidence. Unless we are to take Vučić at his word.

What lies behind the whole story of Serbia-Macedonia relations?

First, when riots broke out in the Macedonian Sobranje in April, in which Zoran Zaev, then opposition leader, was also injured, the Belgrade portal Krik published data on the involvement of the Serbian secret service and journalist Miroslav Lazanski in the events in Macedonia.

Krik journalists obtained transcripts of intercepted conversations between Lazanski, Serbian secret service (BIA) member Goran Živaljević, and Macedonian parliament member Ivan Stoilković, who is also the president of the Democratic Party of Serbs.

The transcripts are part of the material collected by the Macedonian intelligence agency monitoring the conversations of the three mentioned individuals, and the Macedonian agency confirmed that they conducted surveillance with a court order.

The collected evidence, as the agency claims, shows that „through the mediation of Živaljević and Stoilković in March 2017, journalist and military-political commentator and member of parliament from the ruling SNS party Miroslav Lazanski was brought to Macedonia with the aim of carrying out propaganda actions in favor of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

Their goal was to promote Russian foreign policy in the region and to fight against Macedonia's entry into NATO. Gruevski had the support of official Russia during his more than ten years in power.

Although official Belgrade did not publicly support Gruevski during the protests in Macedonia, all media in Serbia under government control conducted a daily witch hunt against Zoran Zaev.

Second, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and former NATO commander James Stavridis recently said that Macedonia could become the next country to be admitted to NATO.

Third, according to Macedonian media reports, Serbia summoned the employees of the Embassy in Skopje for urgent consultations after learning that Macedonia would propose Kosovo for membership in UNESCO.

Fourth, it is no secret that the highest officials of the international community have finally realized that Vučić is not the „European“ he wants to present himself as, so they are slowly turning their backs on him, and they consider Zoran Zaev the leader of political processes in the Balkans.

Fifth, the recent Adriatic Charter summit in Podgorica, which was also attended by US Vice President Mike Pence, showed a clear direction in which the region is heading. America has returned to the Balkans in a big way, while Russia's influence is waning and it only has support in Serbia.

Vučić pointed out that in the new situation with problems with Macedonia, a foreign factor also has an influence, but that he does not mean Russia in that regard. Although no one asked him about it, he specifically mentioned Russia. Why?

All this leads to the conclusion that with the political changes in Macedonia, Russia is slowly losing its influence, and so is Serbia.

Vučić accuses Macedonia of eavesdropping, and perhaps the opposite happened, so that with the departure of Russia's man Nikola Gruevski, Serbia is no longer able to eavesdrop and record in the Macedonian Sobranje, and in the whole story it tries to present itself as a victim.