According to our information, the likelihood that FRY will give up "Prohor Pcinski" is very small. However, there is significant likelihood that the Yugoslav side will accept the proposal for "special status", but it is expected that it will put forward a counter-demand: that Serb monuments in Macedonia receive equal status.
We have learned that the platform for negotiations offers three options for "Prohor Pcinski": that it become a Macedonian possession, that it receive special status within the framework of the basic agreement between FRY and Macedonia regarding the borders, or that a special agreement regarding the historical monument itself be concluded.
At the same time, out team will advocate that all territory entered in our cadastre, which is now divided between the two countries, such as fields, houses and such, become Macedonian territory. We also found out that in the negotiations the Macedonian delegation will be very firm and will reject any adjustment of the border at our expense.
Unofficially we have learned that this platform has already been adopted by the government's Commission for Foreign Policy and Security as well as the Government itself at its most recent session. Macedonia has already sent a request to FRY regarding the extension of the negotiations and it is expected that on May 11 or 12 mixed commission for the marking of the border will be in session. Our negotiating team will be led by the undersecretary from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Viktor Dimovski.
According to our information, Dimovski was appointed to that position since the government and the Ministry were not satisfied with the manner in which the former team carried out the negotiations in the mixed commission. Namely, interstate commission, especially our part of it, has the mandate to negotiate only the "marking" of the border, rather than the "establishment" of the same, as was written in the regulations of the commission, since as far as Macedonia is concerned, the border has been established but has not been "marked".
Negotiations between Macedonia and FRY regarding the border have been going on since the break-up of the former SFRY, when Belgrade expressed its dissatisfaction with the existing border. The FRY authorities demanded adjustment of almost 80% or borderline at our expense. After several meetings of the mixed commission, negotiations stalled at three most disputed points: monastery "Prohor Pcinski", border point between FRY, Albania and Macedonia on the Sar Mountain and the territory near Kumanovo. Ignoring the problem with monastery "Prohor Pcinski", the other two points are of strategic importance for our country, since those two elevated points provide control of a large part of Macedonian territory, which is perhaps the reason FRY demands most significant border adjustments at those two points.
Our team is entering with high expectations in the forthcoming round of negotiations, since they expect that at this moment it is in the interest of FRY to close this question. Namely, most of the disputed points are on the part that borders Kosovo, so that FRY would only confirm its sovereignty over Kosovo by negotiating about this part of the border.