Sedona Forum, a closed gathering of high political and business representatives from the U.S. and the world, was opened last evening in the mountains near the town of Sedona in Arizona.

The President of the Republic of Macedonia, Dr. Gjorge Ivanov, who was invited by the Institute of U.S. Senator John McCain, the organizer of this Forum, met with the U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden. Ivanov, at the dinner which marked the opening of the forum, was seated at the table with Vice President Biden, Senator McCain, and the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.

President Ivanov, who arrived in the U.S. after his visit to Canada, had a long meeting with Canada's Defence Minister, Peter MacKay, who also participated in the Sedona Forum.

Canada's Defense Minister congratulated for the high professionalism of our troops in NATO missions and noted that whenever visiting Afghan he gladly meets Macedonian peacekeepers. The Canadian Minister expressed interest to visit the Republic of Macedonia and congratulated President Ivanov for the successful visit to Canada. MacKay particularly stressed the visit of President Ivanov to the Canadian Forces College and the fact that high level Army officials have attended training at Canadian military schools.

Vice President Biden, responsible in the White House for the U.S. policy on the Balkan countries, in the Forum's introductory discussion with Senator McCain pledged for reconciliation between the Balkan states, with an open discussion about the difficult period of the recent past and for addressing the committed crimes.

- We must detect who is responsible for the committed crimes and what was the reason for that. The only way to win over the demons is to sincerely and directly acknowledge what had happened. We have worked hard in Bosnia and Kosovo, Senator McCain and I were among the strongest voices urging the opening of war crime tribunals. Every nation must accept what its officials have done; we must not allow people to say they did not know what had happened. The best thing that Germany did were the war crime tribunals, a thing that made it a great democracy as it is today. We insist on the same in Serbia and the Balkans. The nation will not be silent about these events, Biden said in his speech, focusing on the current domestic political events in the United States, as is the debate over the laws on weapons.

President Ivanov will participate in today's panel discussion dedicated to the integrations in Europe.

Main topic of Sedona Forum is spreading and defending democracy worldwide. McCain, as a leading Republican Senator in charge of foreign policy, through his Institute works on building U.S. policy toward the world, primarily Iran, Afghanistan and other key crisis spots, as well as towards Europe. The conference brings together leading senators and former senators engaged in the foreign policy, Kelly Ayotte and Joe Lieberman. The Forum was attended by some of the former architects of the U.S. foreign policy as Paul Wolfowitz and leading business figures such as Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE and Bill Simon, CEO of Walmart.