Nikola Dimitrov (born 30 September 1972) is a
Macedonian politician and diplomat, who has served as
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...
for
North Macedonia
North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...
from 31 May 2017 to 30 August 2020. He also served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000 and
Macedonian ambassador to the United States and then the Netherlands. In 2014, he turned down an appointment as Macedonia's new ambassador to
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
.
Dimitrov, together with his Greek counterpart
Nikos Kotzias, signed the
Prespa agreement in 2018 in efforts of resolving the
Macedonia naming dispute. As a result of this agreement, his country changed its name to North Macedonia.
Career
Dimitrov started his governmental career in 1996 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an
international human rights law
International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law is primarily made up of treaties, ag ...
yer, and was promoted to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000. In 2002 he was named the second
Macedonian ambassador to the United States, succeeding
Ljubica Acevska. This made him the youngest diplomat in Washington, D.C. at the time; this was part of a trend of generational transitions in Eastern European governments: "replac
ngthe old guard with young, Western-educated technocrats".
In October 2009 he took up a new post as Macedonia's ambassador to the Netherlands. After the end of his term there in March 2013, it had originally been planned that he would take up the ambassadorship to Germany, but instead that post went to
Nikola Kolev. In February 2014, it was announced that Dimitrov had turned down an appointment as Macedonia's ambassador to Moscow.
Dimitrov was Special Envoy in the talks for overcoming the name differences under the auspices of the United Nations in the period 2003-2008. From 2008 until 2011 he was a co-representative of the then Republic of Macedonia before the International Court of Justice in the case against Greece concerning the interpretation and implementation of the Interim Accord signed by both countries in 1995.
Having been involved in the diplomatic efforts for the name dispute for years, in 2017 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new government led by
Zoran Zaev, leader of
SDSM, which pledged to solve the disputes with neighboring countries and to improve the cooperation with them. As head of the Macedonian diplomacy, Dimitrov signed the
Prespa agreement on 17 June 2018 in a high-level ceremony at the
Greek border village of
Psarades on
Lake Prespa.
He is a former member of
The Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group.
Personal life
Nikola's father
Dimitar Dimitrov is a
refugee
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
of the
Greek Civil War. Nikola did his
LL.B. at the
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, and his
LL.M at
King's College, Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he specialised in
international law
International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...
. He has been married twice and has three children, two of which are 16 and one 22.
Awards and honors
*: On September 9, 2019, Dimitrov received the "EWB Award for the Contribution to the European Integration of the Region" by portal
European Western Balkans for "demonstrating extraordinary efforts in bringing his country and the region closer to the EU, promoting the spirit of cooperation and peace in regional affairs, with a special emphasis on normalization of relations between Greece and North Macedonia, as well as an exemplary support for democratic reforms and overcoming the burden of the past in the Western Balkans”.
See also
*
List of foreign ministers in 2017
*
List of foreign ministers in 2018
*
List of foreign ministers in 2019
*
List of foreign ministers in 2020
References
External links
*
*
Interview with HE Nikola Dimitrov 24 October 2011, on ''
The First Post''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dimitrov, Nikola
1972 births
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje alumni
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Ambassadors of North Macedonia to the Netherlands
Ambassadors of North Macedonia to the United States
Foreign ministers of North Macedonia
Living people
Macedonian jurists
Politicians from Skopje
Diplomats from Skopje
Social Democratic Union of Macedonia politicians