The President of the Republic of Macedonia, H.E. Dr. Gjorge Ivanov, visited today the Seismological Observatory of the faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Skopje.

Members of the staff introduced President Ivanov to the work of this institution, whose main task is to perform continued monitoring and scientific analysis of the overall seismic activity on the territory of the Republic of Macedonia.

"In the year that marks the 50th anniversary since the catastrophic Skopje earthquake, we are paying a visit to the Seismological Observatory, the place where all earthquakes happening on our territory and in the surrounding areas are carefully noted, analyzed, studied and researched. The aim of this visit is to show our recognition to the hard work invested in noting and studying these activities and keeping up with all the novelties in this area. This was the main reason behind this visit", stated President Ivanov.

In response to a journalist question regarding the work of the ad hoc Inquiry Committee on the events of December 24, President Ivanov announced that next week, he sill meet its president, Mr. Borche Davitkovski, in order to hear the reasons why he wishes to resign from the function of president of the Committee.

„Sometime during next week I will meet him and try to see what the issue is, what the status of the Committee's activities is, and why he was forced to make this gesture", said President Ivanov.

When asked about the negative answer by Greek Prime Minister Andonis Samaras regarding possible meetings with Macedonian authorities, President Ivanov pointed out that the Republic of Macedonia has no interlocutor when it comes to resolving the imposed name issue.

„All open issues we have had in the region so far have been overcome through dialogue. This is why we mentioned the example of Croatia and Slovenia. Slovenia, as a Mamber State of the European Union was forced to act in a European manner towards a candidate country. However, the decision to have a parallel process of negotiations and resolving the problem was reached between Slovenia and Croatia themselves. Their representatives met in Ljubljana and Zagreb, and they found a solution. You see, we have been getting negative responses to all our initiatives. But what more can we expect from the person who created this problem in the first place, and who now wishes to step aside from finding a solution to the problem that he created two decades ago", stated President Ivanov.