Athens News Agency: News in English, 08-04-05

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

CONTENTS

[01] FM Bakoyannis at conference

[01] FM Bakoyannis at conference

Bakoyannis sent a positive message of friendship and cooperation to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) for a common future in NATO and the EU, after the issue of FYROM's name is solved.

Bakoyannis said that when a solution is found to the name issue, "we shall welcome them as allies with special satisfaction and we shall continue to support their efforts for EU accession as well with determination and fervour."

The minister added that "this is the positive message that I wish to send from here, from your conference, today, to our neighbours. It is a message of friendship and cooperation towards a common future. I remain optimistic that it shall be heeded."

Coming directly to the Zappion Hall from Bucharest, where she had attended the NATO summit together with Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Bakoyannis analysed the principles and values that obliged Greece to observe a negative stance at the summit and not to consent to an accession invitation to NATO being extended to FYROM, since there was no mutually acceptable solution to the name issue.

"It is a substantive and modern-day international issue. An issue that affects regional stability that concerns the practical pursuit of relations of good neighbourliness. Elements that constitute the self-evident foundations for building allied or close partnership relations. This is the allied position that was adopted by the members of NATO in Bucharest," she said.

Bakoyannis stressed, however, that in no way does this development curb the determination of the Greek government to continue the negotiations immediately and intensively.

Referring to the conference's theme "The course of the Western Balkans towards Europe," the minister said that "the future that we envisage and to which our policy is aiming at is in some years from now the one-time troubled region of the Balkans to constitute a stable and rapidly developing European region."

CAPTION: ANA-MPA file photo of Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis.

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