Macedonia's late President Boris Trajkovski was laid to rest today a week after he was killed in a plane crash over Bosnia.
Heads of state, government leaders and ambassadors from nearly 60 countries, including Ireland,
Britain, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China, paid last respects to a leader credited with averting a civil war in 2001.
"We believe in this country ... in its determination to become a full member of the European institutions," European Commission President Romano Prodi said in a graveside speech.
Trajkovski, 47, was en route to an international conference on February 26th when his turboprop plane crashed in heavy fog in southern Bosnia, just hours before his country was to submit its application for EU membership in Ireland .
Macedonia's presentation was indefinitely postponed, but Prodi told the leadership that the EU is "looking forward to receiving your application." Prodi urged the government to continue "along the path of European integration ... completing the work (Trajkovski) started."
There has been some controversy over what caused the crash that killed Trajkovski, six of his aides and the plane's two pilots. Bosnian and Macedonian investigators have hinted that air traffic controllers in southern Bosnia - French members of the NATO-led peace keeping force - might have been responsible.
Salko Begic, chief inspector of the Bosnian Civil Aviation Agency, told the Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz on Friday that preliminary results of the investigation would be revealed next week and a final report in a month and a half.
All but one of the victims' bodies were badly burned in the crash and had to be identified through DNA tests.
Trajkovski was Macedonia's second president since the country became independent in 1991 with the breakup of the former six-republic Yugoslav federation.
No official date has been set for a vote to elect a new head of state.