The Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Poposki visited the Skopje-based Office of the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe (NALAS) on Monday and met with its president Özgen Keskin and his deputies Anton Persak and Djuro Bukvic.

At the meeting, views were shared on the potentials for building strategic relations between the NALAS and the Southeast European Cooperation Process (SEECP), strengthening regional cooperation and improving the cooperation between various local authorities in the region.

"The Republic of Macedonia has taken over the SEECP chairmanship and we want to upgrade the network of topics for cooperation. We want to accomplish this in a manner which is the most appropriate for the citizens of the region," Mr. Poposki stated after the meeting.

The Minister underlined that the cooperation between the countries in the region was excellent and that Macedonia would like to expand that cooperation on all levels.

"We would like the successful story of Southeast Europe to be seen outside our region. In the past, we have suffered from stereotypes about how many conflicts or how many divisions have existed in SEE. Today we can say that the image is being changed and that we are building an image of a region that is a part of Europe, where cooperation could be established in a very concrete way both locally and nationally," Mr. Poposki said.

NALAS president Mr. Keskin said the meeting was very important. "We've discussed cooperation at a national and local level in view of sustainable development, renewable energy or other services. This was a very useful meeting," stated Mr. Keskin who is the mayor of Yıldırım in Bursa, Turkey.

NALAS is a network of associations of local authorities of Southeast Europe. The Network brings together 15 associations and the Macedonian Association of Local Self-Government Units is one of them. The NALAS Secretariat, based in Skopje, is responsible for the overall coordination and the implementation of activities.