The President of the Republic of Macedonia, Dr. Gjorge Ivanov, held a meeting today with the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia, the Commander of the Joint Operations Command, the directors and heads of the state bodies in charge of defense, security and intelligence, and the national Coordinator for combating terrorism.
At the working meeting, the competent authorities informed President Ivanov about the threats and risks resulting from the regional crises and conflicts the Republic of Macedonia is facing, as well as the measures taken to prevent and deal with them.

It was noted at the meeting that the national security system subjects, according to the Action Plan for prevention and management of migrants, their entry and transit across the territory of the Republic of Macedonia of the Headquarters of the Center for Crisis Management, participate with activities and measures for prevention and management of the current crisis with the wave of illegal migration, which comes from the territory of a Member State of the European Union.

The competent authorities informed the Macedonian President that despite the engagement of the army and the police units for state border surveillance and the tasks arising from the Strategic Defense Review, the services exchange and receive information from foreign partners from EU and NATO, as well as from the countries in the region, aimed to identify the risks arising from the illegal migration: transfer of foreign terrorist fighters, preventing the operations of the organized criminal networks in facilitating and helping, smuggling of security risk persons without documents or with false documents, check of the identity of foreign nationals and identification of persons who have participated in military actions in crisis regions.

At the working meeting, they also considered the need to change the position of the national security system subjects and their competences, needs for material, personnel and technical capacities for dealing with threats and review of the mechanism for control over the operation and implementation of the measures by the services.

"The threats we face impose the need for increased communication and cooperation between the services, timely and preventive response, and greater transparency in the work of the system of control of the Parliament and the institutions", President Ivanov stressed at the meeting.

The meeting discussed the possibilities for development of a defense system with an emphasis on increasing the capacity of the special forces and intelligence, and the development of a system for informing the subjects responsible for security and defense, which will be part of the new Defense Strategy of the Republic of Macedonia.