Latvia is a friendly country trying to help Macedonia’s European and Euro-Atlantic integrations, sharing a feeling and understanding for the needs of our region. This is the general conclusion of President Ivanov following the two-day official visit to Latvia.

”Latvia and Lithuania are countries we can learn a lot from in terms of their experience in the Euro-Atlantic integration, but also how they cope in this period of global economic crisis. There is the expected support from them and we have the opportunity to stay in friendly countries willing to help because they feel the needs of their region, but the ability to help our region. So it comes to regional cooperation, exchange of experience on regional level, but also support and help in our efforts to be part of the European family”, President Ivanov said finishing his visit to Latvia, adding that Macedonia after a long absence renews the political dialogue at the highest level which was initiated by President Boris Trajkovski, 12 years ago.

The support for Macedonia’s NATO membership was yesterday explicitly acknowledged by the Head of the Latvian state, President Berzins, emphasizing that inter alia, Latvia has made available all its experience in the field of European integrations.

After a long period of stagnation in bilateral relations between Latvia and Macedonia, the visit of the Macedonian President opens up an opportunity to start intensive governmental cooperation and enhancement of trade between both countries.

President Ivanov had a meeting today with the Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia, Solvita Aboltina, where the commitments of both sides to further expand inter-parliamentary cooperation were confirmed.

Despite intensification of economic cooperation, which is symbolic at this point, Latvia and Macedonia jointly pledged to expand cooperation in the spheres of education, culture, health. After signing of the Agreement on International Road Transport, today Macedonia initiated signing of an international agreement in the sphere of culture. This possibility was discussed in details by the delegations at the working lunch hosted by the Latvian Minister of Culture, Zaneta Jaunzeme-Grende.

From Latvia, Ivanov is going to pay a working visit to Lithuania, and with this he will comple his Baltic tour, aimed at intensified lobbying in anticipation of the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago.