Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-02-06

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] US: FYROM must resolve name issue for NATO entry

[01] US: FYROM must resolve name issue for NATO entry

The statement ranked as amongst the clearest signals by Washington on the issue to date, according to local reports.

"Well, you asked a question about membership in NATO. That's how this whole question came about. 'Macedonia' is part of the Membership Action Plan, MAP, so there is some interaction ongoing between NATO as an organization, its individual member states and 'Macedonia'. We ourselves have made a decision with respect to the name of 'Macedonia'. Now, eventually, as we have said that NATO has an open door and we clearly have -- are engaged in discussions with other nonmember states right now about the potential for membership down the road, one of those issues between 'Macedonia' and Greece would have to be the name issue. And in -- if you were ever to get to membership for 'Macedonia' in NATO, you would have to get all member NATO states agreeing that 'Macedonia' should enter," he said, adding:

"So it was a reference to the fact that if you ever do get to that point, it's an issue that would need to be resolved between 'Macedonia' and Greece, since NATO is a consensus organization," McCormack said, responding to a relevant question

"As an organization and as a member state, we have -- this issue is not an issue for us, but clearly it is for the Greek government. It would need to be resolved if 'Macedonia' were ever to proceed further down the pathway to NATO membership," the spokesman added.

Although Athens and Skopje have achieved remarkable progress in bilateral relations, especially in trade and investments, since signing an UN-mediated "interim agreement" in 1995, the "name issue" remains the only 'thorn' blocking full normalisation.

Greece and ethnic Greek communities around the world strenuously oppose FYROM's use of the name "Macedonia", as in "Republic of Macedonia", citing historical and political reasons. Moreover, Greece's largest province, which shares borders with southern FYROM, is called Macedonia, the same geographical and historical region that more-or-less corresponds with the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, the birthplace of Alexander the Great.

Caption: Workers position a road sign with the new name of Skopje's airport in English and French transcription on the road leading from the capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Skopje, towards the airport on Tuesday, 16 January 2007. FYROM's government changed the name of Skopje's airport, which was called 'Airport Petrovec', into 'Alexander the Great'. UN mediator Matthew Nimitz stressed on 12 January that the decision to rename land-locked FYROM's main airport after Alexander the Great -- whose conquests inaugurated the Hellenistic period in the Greek-speaking world of antiquity, the eastern Mediterranean and much of the Near East all the way to modern-day Afghanistan -- negatively affects negotiations between Greece and its one-time Yugoslav republic neighbour to the north. Athens considered the move as a distinct provocation. ANA-MPA/ EPA/GEORGI LICOVSKI

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