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Macedonia may fully join NATO by spring 2020

On February 6, the envoys of 29 NATO countries and Macedonia singed an accession protocol in Brussels

BRUSSELS, February 13. /TASS/. Macedonia may become a full NATO member by the spring of 2020, although the Alliance will try to speed up the process as much as possible, a NATO official said at a briefing at NATO’s Brussels headquarters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We expect that it will take all NATO countries about 12 months to ratify the Macedonia accession protocol, so the country may become a member by next spring," he said.

The official could not say whether the process would conclude before NATO’s December summit in the United Kingdom, pointing out that it would depend on member states.

At the same time, he said that on February 13, the North Atlantic Alliance expected to receive an official letter from Skopje saying that the process of changing the country’s name to Northern Macedonia was over.

On February 6, the envoys of 29 NATO countries and Macedonia singed an accession protocol at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. Now the document will be submitted for ratification to the Alliance’s members, and after that Macedonia will also be able to ratify it. The process is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

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