Skopje, 8 November 2022 (MIA) – The overall context and cooperation in light of the Friendship Treaty and joint obligations arising from it were in the focus of discussion at the meeting of Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani with Bulgarian colleague Nikolaj Milkov in Sofia on Tuesday. Concrete mechanisms for the prevention of hate speech were agreed at the meeting, with the two ministers mutually agreeing not to allow the numerous provocations from various groups and individuals in both countries to disrupt the process of improving the goodneighborly relations between the two countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release. “I would like to assure you that together with my colleague Milkov we will do everything not to allow others to lead our foreign policy or others to create our bilateral relations. The two of us, together with the diplomats in our ministries, in the spirit of European values, will continue to build a European future for all our citizens. We should not forget that we are currently allies in NATO, future partners in the European Union, but above all, friends and good neighbors, and I expect our cooperation to develop accordingly,” said FM Osmani. Osmani and Milkov agreed on holding the upcoming joint business forum between the two countries in December, at which they will assess ways for joint management of current issues such as the energy challenges, cooperation in agriculture, health, as well as validating the benefits of cross-border cooperation. “The dynamics of mutual cooperation is also evidenced by the growth of trade, which mounts to over EUR 710 million in the first eight months of 2022, an increase of exactly 52 percent compared to the same period in 2021, and positions Bulgaria in fifth place on the list of countries with which we have the largest trade exchange,” stressed Osmani before the media and added that with the current trend, he expects the trade exchange between the two countries to exceed EUR 1 billion by the end of 2022. Interlocutors made an overview of the current activities related to the opening of the Klepalo border crossing, as well as cooperation in the field of culture, at the same time encouraging the intensification of cultural cooperation which through its universal values should bring the two peoples together and build friendship between them, reads the press release. ad/ik/