Skopje, 30 July 2021 (MIA) – Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi held a meeting on Friday with Kosovo’s Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz. Talks focused during the meeting, Xhaferi’s office said in a press release, on establishing and intensifying bilateral political and economic relations. Xhaferi, the press release read, expressed satisfaction over the development of bilateral relations, characterized by mutual support and respect. Moreover, he underlined parliamentary cooperation at multilateral level and expressed assurance that both sides will work even harder in the upcoming period on strengthening economic and trade partnership. The Parliament Speaker also briefed Minister Gërvalla-Schwarz on efforts North Macedonia has made so far to resolve the dispute with Bulgaria and start EU accession talks, underlining that identity issues shouldn’t present an obstacle on our EU integration path and stressing hopes that both North Macedonia and Albania will launch EU negotiations as soon as possible. Gërvalla-Schwarz expressed satisfaction over her visit to North Macedonia, and especially Skopje, adding that for her, visits to the capital are more than work visits and bring up memories of her immediate family. She agreed with Xhaferi that relations between the two neighboring countries are friendly, noting that North Macedonia and Kosovo have no unresolved issues and stressing that there’s still room to increase political, economic and all other kinds of cooperation. Our goal, the Minister said, is to improve the lives of our citizens, which requires intensive cooperation with friendly countries, stressing expectations for a joint government session to take place as soon as possible. At the end of the meeting, interlocutors agreed that bilateral communication and cooperation will resume with even greater intensity, the press release read.