Macedonia's president was killed yesterday when his plane crashed in a mountainous part of southern Bosnia en route to an international investment conference, officials said.
The Macedonian government aircraft, carrying President Boris Trajkovski and several other officials to the conference in the western Bosnian city of Mostar, crashed near the village of Bitonja shortly after 8am, the officials said.
Bosnian police said they found wreckage near the village about 80km south of Sarajevo. There were no survivors.
It was not immediately clear how many people were aboard the plane.
Nedzad Vejzagic, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation, said, ``We received confirmation from our patrols that they have found the wreckage of the Macedonian plane and that there are no survivors.''
The weather in the area was said to be poor, and it prompted Albania's prime minister, Fatos Nano, to cancel his own flight to the conference, Nano spokesman Aldrin Dalipi said.
Macedonia was to formally submit its application for eventual membership in the EU yesterday in Ireland, but canceled the presentation and called its delegation back from Dublin, officials said.
Trajkovski, 47, studied theology in the US, where he gave up communism and converted from Orthodox Christianity. He was elected president in November 1999. An ordained Methodist minister, his powers were divided with those of Macedonia's prime minister.
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