United Macedonian Diaspora (UMD), the leading voice for our nation’s close to half a million Americans of Macedonian heritage, congratulates President Obama on being re-elected to a second term in office as President of the United States and looks forward to continuing working with his Administration on strengthening U.S.-Macedonia bilateral relations. UMD also commends Governor Mitt Romney for his service to the American people and wishes him best of luck in his future endeavors.
At the April 2009 NATO Summit in Strasbourg, President Obama said that he looks “forward to the day when we can welcome Macedonia to the Alliance. The door to membership will remain open for other countries that meet NATO’s standards and can make a meaningful contribution to allied security.” This policy was re-confirmed during the NATO Chicago Summit in May 2012 by Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton when she stated that she believes “this…should be the last summit that is not an enlargement summit.”
UMD joins a score of U.S. policy makers including former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice, former Secretaries of Defense William Cohen and Donald Rumsfeld, former National Security Advisors General James Jones and Sandy Berger, along with over 60 bi-partisan members of Congress in calling on President Obama to ensure that Macedonia takes its rightful place at the NATO table as soon as possible. We count on the Administration’s active engagement on this issue and on its ability to inhibit the harmful influence of some ethnic special interest groups on U.S. foreign policy towards Southeast Europe.
The Macedonian-American community-at-large will not tolerate international pressure to Macedonia’s constitutional name, language, and identity. UMD hopes that the Administration will continue to firmly support principles of self-determination and Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integration.
UMD thanks all Macedonian-Americans who exercised their civic responsibility of voting in the U.S. elections yesterday. UMD believes that their active participation in this democratic process is a fundamental part of advancing the Macedonian-American community.