Gruevski: Opposition Goal 'to Destabilize Macedonia'

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski - answering a parliamentary question on Thursday - said the material that the opposition Social Democrats had published, pointing to widespread corruption among government ministers, had been obtained from foreign intelligence services in order to discredit the government and seize power.
 
"There is an attempt to jeopardize the stability of Macedonia," Gruevski told legislators, answering a question put by an MP, Roza Topuzova Kareska.

The Prime Minister said the series of wiretapped conversations had been aired over the last two months in order to provoke a crisis in the country.

"The release of these 'created' conversations, related to sensitive ethnic issues, which have been cut and manipulated, can create sensitive issues among citizens. They, therefore, should not be provoked by these manipulations," Gruevski said.

The Prime Minister repeated his claim that the opposition had gained its material from foreign intelligence services to destabilize the country.

"Their goal is destabilization to and create an atmosphere that will lead to tension between citizens," Gruevski said. "They arranged this years ago, but they needed the right moment to go out in public with these wiretapped conversations".

Topuzova-Kareska sought clarification from the Prime Minister about the opposition's claim that the Prime Minister had engineered the mass surveillance of thousands of people, "since no one in Macedonia knows who was wire-tapped, with what motive and for whose interests.

"We do not know if these wire-tapped conversations are fake, selected, or cut, or they are fully authentic as your coalitional partner said," the MP said, referring to the government's ethnic...