Macedonia was one of six republics of federal Yugoslavia when it broke apart after the end of the Cold War, but it initially faced hostility from its neighbors. Serbia on the north opposed its separation from Yugoslavia, Albania on the west supported bringing ethnic Albanian regions into the Albania state, and Greece on the south opposed recognizing it as “Macedonia” in view of the Greek origins the name implied; only Bulgaria on the east provided access to the rest of the world. A UN Preventive Deployment (UNPREDEP) was established on its northern border, and the OSCE created a “Spillover Monitoring Mission to Skopje,” its capital city, since there was no consensus about the name of the newly independent country. Much of the OSCE engagement came from the High Commissioner on National Minorities, who facilitated integrating the ethnic Albanian community with the Macedonian majority. Violence broke out, however, when arms from the Kosovo Liberation Army were obtained by Albanian forces, leading to a brief outbreak of fighting in 2001. The fighting ended with the Ohrid Framework Agreement of 2001, brokered by the OSCE and the UN. Thereafter, the OSCE mission supported democratization, integration of the Albanian community, and an overall improvement in inter-ethnic relations. As a result of one of the most successful OSCE “missions of long duration,” under the new name of “North Macedoni,” it entered the OSCE governing Troika in 2022, and its Foreign Minister, Bujar Osmani, served as OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in 2023, a clear recognition of its progress in meeting the full range of OSCE norms.