By order of Bulgaria’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva, the acting head of mission of the Republic of North Macedonia to Sofia will be summoned to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to explain whether North Macedonia's government is linked to the slander campaign of the Slovenian International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies against Bulgaria, announced Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry. 

The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its deep concern regarding the publications that former or current advisers to North Macedonia’s Prime Minister are involved in the governance of the institute. "Meanwhile, we are concerned about the ongoing discriminatory actions of the authorities of the Republic of North Macedonia," the statement reads. 

Today Bulgaria's citizen Viktor Stoyanov was stopped at the Bulgaria-North Macedonia border. He was carrying 920 books "Bulgarian folk songs collected by the Miladinov Brothers" donated to the Bulgarian Cultural Information Center in Skopje. Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent a consul from the Bulgarian Embassy in Skopje to Deve Bair border checkpoint to assist Viktor Stoyanov.