Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said Tuesday that by expressing regret, Greek Ambassador Alexandra Papadopoulou apologized to Macedonians for the insults at the military parade organized on the occasion of the Greek national day.

“Yesterday I saw that as a representative of Greece she expressed regret for what happened. In diplomacy that is a kind of apology,” the prime minister said.

President Gjorge Ivanov said that suspending those responsible for the chanting of the anti-Macedonian and anti-Albanian slogans was not enough and that Greece needed to change its attitude to all its neighbors.

“It is alarming that today an EU and NATO member state still has people in its security forces promoting hate speech,” President Ivanov said. He discussed the incident in Athens with his Albanian counterpart Bamir Topi on the phone, too.