Athens is not ready to address the issue

Macedonia has shown great willingness to resume talks with Greece under the auspices of the UN with aim to find a solution for the long-standing issue, but there is interlocutor on the other side, said Macedonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikola Poposki in the interview for the Turkish agency “Anatolia”.

Although the dispute lasts a long time, according to Poposki, however it is not a “frozen conflict”. It indicates that the Macedonian side with more steps showed that wants to come to a compromise, assessing the situation as “bitter-sweet” with Macedonian triumph in relation to the law, but on the other hand with a block the Euro- Atlantic integration.

- We demonstrated the capacity to reach a compromise as no one could imagine. So far we made ​​huge sacrifices by accepting the compromise in 1995, the Interim Agreement, which meant changing the flag, the Constitution and further guarantees to the southern neighbor, and in return we got nothing, but degrading appointment at the United Nations, said the Macedonian Minster of Foreign Affairs.

The set back to Athens Macedonia made ​​with one purpose, added Poposki, to allow progress in European integration.

- But Athens did not respect the Agreement with Skopje concluded under the auspices of the UN. The one and only obligation that Greece had, is broken, said Macedonian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He recalls that Greece with the Interim Accord from 1995 was obliged not to hinder Macedonia’s membership in international organizations under the reference “FYROM”, an obligation that was violated at the NATO Summit in 2008 when it blocked Macedonia. The International Court of Justice ruled that Greece’s blockade of Macedonia in Bucharest, violated the Interim Accord, but the situation remains unchanged.

- What is the problem now is that a member of the UN is not willing to respect the Charter of the World organization, does not respect international obligations, and block Macedonia’s accession to NATO and the EU, said Poposki.

For the allegations of Athens that Macedonia has territorial claims, steals Greek history and culture, he says that it is just an excuse not to assume anything about the problem.

- Honestly, it cannot be defined as anything else but excuses. In the past years, the Greek political leaders have demonstrated exceptional capacity for making excuses. The only excuse or explanation that did not give us is how they can violate the international law and appropriate responsibilities for such a long period. This raises the question how they can justify their membership in the UN. These questions still remain not answered, said Poposki.

According to him, at the moment, it is obvious that in Athens there is no willingness to address the issue, only the unresolved issue in the Greek- Macedonian relations, out of that picture, as noted, is really good.