Washington, 2 September 2022 (MIA) - A condition for the Bulgarian government to approve the opening and closing of chapters with the European Union is North Macedonia to fully meet the 2017 Agreement provisions, in which historical issues are an integral part, the new Bulgarian Ambassador to the United States, Georgi Panayotov, has stated. In an interview with the Voice of America in Macedonian, the Ambassador said that the joint commission of Macedonian and Bulgarian historians should solve all periods in the common history before North Macedonia joins the EU. "An integral part of the 2017 Agreement is the bilateral commission on historical and educational issues and its duty to interpret the joint history of the two countries in objective and scientific manner," he stated. Once the historical issue is solved, Panayotov added, the issue with the language will not hinder the relations between the two countries. According to him, the small changes to the French proposal haven't changed the essence of the Bulgarian demands, and if that were the case, Bulgaria wouldn't have lifted the veto. Also, Ambassador Panayotov referred to the sanctioning of hate speech and the deportation of Macedonian Jews to the Treblinka concentration camp, saying: How is it possible that the Manaki Brothers are so revered in North Macedonia after playing a key role in the registration of the Bitola Jews that were later deported? The Voice of America mentions that Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani after the signing of the second bilateral protocol on the 2017 Friendship Treaty insisted that historical issues will not be a condition for the opening and closing of chapters with the EU.