Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (right) meets with Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev at the EU-Western Balkans summit in Sofia on May 17. (Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)
2018-06-13
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SULAIMANI — Greece has agreed to recognize Macedonia under the name ‘Republic of North Macedonia or “Severna Macedonja”, a Greek government official said on Tuesday (June 13).
Macedonia used to be a constituent nation of Yugoslavia before the latter’s breakup in the 1990s and has sometimes been known as FYROM or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, according to Reuters.
Greece has objected to Macedonia’s name because it has a province by the same name and says that the Slavic country’s name indicated irredentist ambitions and the cultural appropriation of Greek history, such as Alexander the Great.
The dispute is widely seen as preventing Macedonia’s elevation to the European Union and NATO.
The breakthrough has come from diplomacy between socialist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and social democrat Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, both of whom are not strong nationalists.
(NRT/Reuters)