Macedonia President Expects Name Dispute Progress with New Greece Govt
World | October 6, 2009, Tuesday // 18:31| viewsMacedonia President Gjorge Ivanov (left) believes a compromise on the name dispute could be reached with the new government of Greece. Photo by EPA/BGNES
Macedonia’s President, Gjorge Ivanov, has stated he expected an acceleration of the resolving of his country’s name dispute with Greece.
Ivanov explicitly connected the expected progress with the election of a new Greek government, after the Socialist Party PASOK won the Sunday’s Parliamentary Elections in Greece.
“A compromise is possible if the process is developing under the UN resolution and the only topic discussed is the name issue,” Ivanov said Tuesday as quoted by BGNES.
He warned that other irrelevant issues – such as Macedonian identity and Macedonian language – had also been included in the name dispute negotiations which had hurt the negotiations process.
“A compromise decision is one which offends neither Macedonia, nor Greece,” Ivanov said.
One of Greece’s northern provinces is also called Macedonia, and since Macedonia’s founding in 1991, Greece has refused to recognize its neighbor under its constitutional name “The Republic of Macedonia”. As a result, Macedonia is listed as a UN member under the name “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”.
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