People look for souvenirs at a stall at the main square of Skopje on Tuesday.

The prime minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, said on Tuesday that Skopje is ready to accept a geographical qualifier to its name and that it has already followed through on pledges of good will to Athens.

Zaev said his cabinet decided on Tuesday to rename its capital’s airport “Skopje International Airport” from the current “Alexander the Great International Airport” and to rename a key national highway “National Friendship Road” instead of the current “National Road Alexander the Macedonian.”

If FYROM authorities make good on these pledges imminently, along with Zaev’s promise to accept a geographical qualifier, the momentum in United Nations-mediated name talks could gather pace.

The Greek Foreign Ministry welcomed FYROM’s move to rename the airport and highway, referring to a “positive step toward reversing what has happened in the past decade and created tensions in the relations between the two countries.” It also referred to an “important development in the direction of dealing with irredentism.”

“We hope that it marks the start of a new chapter in the relations between our two countries and peoples,” it said.

Zaev also responded to claims by Kotzias according to which FYROM authorities have dragged their feet in briefing the public about the progress of negotiations on the “Macedonia” name issue.

“The public has been fully informed,” Zaev said. “A solution is reachable and it is to this purpose that negotiations are under way.” </s> FILE PHOTO: Prime Minister of Macedonia Zoran Zaev addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonia is ready to add a geographical qualifier to its name to help resolve a dispute with Greece that has held up its prospects of joining the European Union and NATO, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said on Tuesday.

Macedonia joined the United Nations in 1993 with the provisional name “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” because its neighbor Greece objected to the one-word name saying it implied a territorial claim to a Greek province of the same name.

“I would like the negotiations (with Greece) to succeed ... We are ready for a geographical qualifier in the name,” he told reporters in the capital Skopje on Tuesday.

He had pledged a speedy solution to the dispute last month during the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Most countries refer to the country that declared independence in 1991 from the former Yugoslavia as Macedonia. Diplomats say Northern Macedonia, New Macedonia or Upper Macedonia could be now acceptable to both sides.

Zaev also said his government has renamed the main airport and a key highway, which had both been named after Alexander the Great. That riled Athens as Macedonia was also the name of an ancient Greek kingdom ruled by Alexander.

Zaev said the airport will be renamed “International Airport Skopje” and the highway will be called Friendship.

“With today’s decision ... we are confirming our step toward building friendship and confidence with Greece,” he told reporters in the capital Skopje.

On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in northern Greece against any solution that would include the term “Macedonia.” </s> FYROM’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said that his country was ready to accept a geographical definition in its name. Mr Zaev added that the FYROM’s cabinet today decided to rename the airport from “Alexander the Great International Airport” to “Skopje International Airport” and to change the country’s national road leading to the border with Greece from “Alexandros of Macedon” National Highway to “Friendship Highway”.

 Meanwhile, European Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn told Athens News Agency that were no thoughts of FYROM’s accession to the EU in the initial phase, but for an initial stage of negotiations”, adding that if the name dispute between Greece and FYROM was resolved, the small Balkan state met all the preconditions for EU membership?” </s> Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev says his country is ready to add a geographical qualifier to its name in a bid to resolve a 27-year-old dispute with neighboring Greece over the name of the former Yugoslav republic.

"I want the negotiation process [with Greece] to succeed, we are ready for a geographic designation and I will stop here since I know this is a sensitive issue," Zaev on February 6 in the Macedonian capital, Skopje.

Greece's objections to Skopje’s use of the name Macedonia since the country's independence in 1991 has complicated bids by the former Yugoslav republic to join the European Union and NATO.

Athens says the use of the name Macedonia suggests Skopje has territorial claims to Greece's northern region of Macedonia.

Leaders of the two countries have said progress has recently been made in settling the dispute, with indications that any agreement could include Macedonia adding "Upper," "New," or "North" to its name.

The Macedonian government on February 6 officially renamed the country’s main airport and a north-south highway, both previously named after Alexander the Great, the famed ruler of the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia who is also celebrated in Greece.

The capital’s airport was renamed International Airport Skopje and the highway became the Friendship Highway.

"With today's decision ... we are confirming our step toward building friendship and confidence with Greece," Zaev said.

The Macedonian prime minister was speaking after tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Athens on February 4 against any solution that would include the name Macedonia.

The Greek government has said it is prepared to accept a composite name that is clearly distinct from Greek Macedonia.

Matthew Nimetz, the UN envoy dealing with the matter, voiced optimism on February 1 that the Balkan neighbors could end the dispute during 2018.

At the UN, Macedonia is formally known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

However, the Security Council has agreed that it is a provisional name.

Macedonia has also been admitted to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund under the FYROM moniker.

Most countries, including Russia and the United States, recognize the country's constitutional title, the Republic of Macedonia.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters </s> Macedonia, is ready to make a concession over its name by adding an extra geographic designation, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said Tuesday, in a bid to end a long-running row with Greece.

"We are ready to accept a geographic designation for the name" of the country, Zaev told reporters in Skopje.

Zaev refused to elaborate saying he did not want to undermine the ongoing talks with Greece over the issue.

"I want the negotiation process to succeed, we are ready for a geographic designation and I will stop here since I know this is a sensitive issue," he said.

Macedonia media speculated about several possible options, including changing the name to Upper Macedonia, Northern Macedonia, Vardar Macedonia, Macedonia-Skopje or New Macedonia.

The Macedonian prime minister was speaking two days after tens of thousands of Greeks staged a mass rally in Athens urging the government not to compromise in the row.

Athens objects to Macedonia's name, arguing it suggests that Skopje has claims to the territory and heritage of Greece's historic northern region of the same name, going back to when Alexander the Great ruled in the fourth century BC.

The dispute has remained unresolved since the former Yugoslav republic's independence in 1991.

Because of Greece's objections, Macedonia in 1993 joined the United Nations as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

The government on Tuesday also officially renamed Skopje's Alexander the Great airport, which becomes International Airport Skopje. The north-south Alexander the Great motorway, at the Greek border, similarly becomes the Friendship Highway.

A resolution of the name issue is needed before Macedonia, home to some 2.2 million people, can join NATO or the European Union. </s> Greece has welcomed an announcement by the Macedonian prime minister that his country is willing to change its name, in a sign that one of the world’s most vexing disputes could soon be solved.



Athens described Zoran Zaev’s readiness to add a geographical qualifier as “a positive step” that would dispel fears of territorial claims over Greece’s adjacent region of Macedonia.

Among the new names being considered are Upper Macedonia, New Macedonia, Northern Macedonia and Macedonia (Skopje), according to well-placed diplomats.

“This is an important development,” said the Greek foreign ministry in a statement released shortly after Zaev said the Balkan state would also rename its airport and national motorway.

“We hope that it marks the start of a new chapter in the relations between our two countries and peoples.”

Compromise is unpopular in sections of Greek society. On Wednesday, the Greek Orthodox church held an extraordinary meeting of its governing synod to discuss the name issue.

Clerics were among the hundreds of thousands of people who protested in Athens on Sunday over the prospect of a solution that would include the word Macedonia.

The region of Macedonia, formerly part of the Ottoman empire, spreads across Greece, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Athens has objected to its northern neighbour’s use of the name since it proclaimed independence in 1991, arguing that it projected irredentist ambitions.

Addressing reporters late on Tuesday, Zaev said the country’s Alexander the Great airport would henceforth be known as International Airport Skopje, and its main transit route to Greece would drop a similar moniker and be called the Friendship highway.

It is the first time since 1993, when the landlocked country joined the UN under a provisional name, that Skopje has made such concessions. All three moves were described as confidence-building measures by both sides. Greece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, is as keen as Zaev to reach a settlement.

The two leaders are under intense political pressure to resolve the row, which has held up the Balkan nation’s drive to join Nato and the EU. The 27-year-old dispute is also blamed for endangering western-style liberal politics across Europe’s most historically volatile region, where growing Russian intervention is increasingly a cause for alarm.

Greece used its right of veto to stop Skopje joining Nato in 2008 and has since blocked EU accession talks, despite the country taking significant steps to open up its economy. Efforts to settle the row have often come up against nationalist opposition on both sides of the frontier.

Though a progressive on national issues, Tsipras is in government with the rightwing Independent Greeks party, which has taken a hard line on the name row.

James Ker-Lindsay, a professor of politics at St Mary’s University in London, said: “From the perspective of Skopje, I think we are potentially close to an agreement.

“My big worry is Greece. Although the current Greek government wants to see the issue resolved, it is so politicised it is hard to see how they could push it through.”

Greece’s public order minister disclosed last week that the foreign minister, Nikos Kotzias, and several other senior government officials had received death threats for their conciliatory stance on the issue. </s> Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) Premier Zoran Zaev said his country is ready to end a 26-year-long dispute with Greece and accept a qualifier such as Northern, Upper or New – as long as the word “Macedonia” kept.

FYROM joined the United Nations in 1993 with the provisional name FYROM because Greece objected to the one-word name saying it implied a territorial claim to a Greek province of the same name.

“I would like the negotiations [with Greece] to succeed… We are ready for a geographical qualifier in the name,” he told reporters in the capital Skopje on Feb. 6, the news agency Reuters reported.

“With today’s decision… we are confirming our step towards building friendship and confidence with Greece,” he said with his country making almost no significant concession in getting Greece to bend.

Greece’s ruling anti-nationalist Radical Left SYRIZA wants to give the name away for good after it was allowed by a New Democracy government in 1992 for the emerging Balkan neighbor breaking away from Yugoslavia.

The acronym FYROM was supposed to be a temporary solution until a permanent name could be agreed for all uses, including internationally, but more than 140 of the world’s 195 countries already call that country “Macedonia” and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said Greece has no choice but to give in.

That’s despite Greece having vetoed FYROM hopes of getting into NATO and the European Union but with pressure building to relent with United Nations Envoy Matthew Nimetz, an American lawyer who has failed for more than two decades to find a solution picking up talks between the countries after a three-year break.

The US wants to get FYROM into NATO as a bulwark against Russian interests and Tsipras, elected on promises that included taking Greece out of NATO and removing American military interests has ironically picked up the baton and championed those causes, further reneging on his vows, including pledges to reverse austerity.

Zaev said FYROM has already changed the names of its international airport and major highway named for Alexander the Great, the Greek conqueror it claimed along with Greek lands, heritage and culture, including the real Macedonia in Greece and the second-largest city and port of Thessaloniki.

Zaev said the airport will be renamed International Airport Skopje and the highway will be called Friendship but didn’t say whether a statue of Alexander in the capital would be taken down too.

Tsipras and Kotzias said they didn’t care that hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest in Thessaloniki and Athens against their plans for the name giveaway, dismissing them as irrelevant or nationalist and that they would proceed anyway.

Ironically, the qualifiers that FYROM said it will now accept have been on the table for years, including from another former New Democracy government ten years ago but only now is being accepted.

Nimetz had included those in his list of suggestions that Kotzias said Greece was willing to accept because it was in the national interest, without explaining why giving away the name of Macedonia was.

Tsipras said he wants to pave the way for FYROM to get into NATO too even though that country isn’t willing to change its Constitution to renounce claims in Greek lands and other irredentist stances.

Zaev and Tsipras met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January and pledged a speedy end to the name feud even though Greece could have hung tough and kept FYROM out of NATO and the EU until another name other than Macedonia was agreed.

The Greek newspaper Kathimerini said that if a deal is sealed that Kotzias will fly to FYROM in the first direct flight from Athens in years instead of having Zaev come to Athens for the agreement.

The Greek Foreign Ministry welcomed FYROM’s move to rename the airport and highway, referring to a “positive step toward reversing what has happened in the past decade and created tensions in the relations between the two countries.”

It also referred to an “important development in the direction of dealing with irredentism,” even though Alexander’s statue remains and FYROM hasn’t agreed to change its Constitution or give up claims on Greek lands.

“We hope that it marks the start of a new chapter in the relations between our two countries and peoples,” the ministry said.

Zaev also denied claims by Kotzias that FYROM authorities delayed briefing the public about the progress of negotiations.

“The public has been fully informed,” Zaev said. “A solution is reachable and it is to this purpose that negotiations are under way,” but he he didn’t say whether he would keep his word to hold a referendum with Tsipras unwilling to do so in Greece as polls show up to 68 percent of Greeks are opposed to his decision to relent. </s> After more than a decade of being stubbornly unlinked in the skies, Greece and Macedonia are to put Europe’s last aviation blockade behind them.

At 6.40pm on Thursday the first direct flight to Skopje, the Macedonian capital, will take off from Athens’ international airport. Officials are calling it a historic moment for bilateral ties between the countries, which have moved to end their dispute over the former Yugoslav republic’s name.

“This is indicative of the big improvement in our relations,” Macedonia’s ambassador to Athens, Darko Angelov, told the Guardian. “As neighbouring countries it was long needed and will be greatly welcomed by the business community.”

The service, to be operated by Greece’s largest carrier, Aegean Airlines, will see flights resume twice weekly.

Macedonia’s deputy prime minister, Bujar Osmani, will be on the 48-seat Olympic Air ATR42 turboprop plane for the first flight.

The air link was suspended in 2006 when Skopje’s former rightwing government chose to name the capital’s airport after Alexander the Great.

Greece saw the step as appropriation of its historical legacy, arguing it amounted to further proof of landlocked Macedonia’s intent to lay claim to the adjacent Greek province of Macedonia, including the port city of Thessaloniki.

Under a landmark deal reached between the two nations in June, the Macedonian prime minister, Zoran Zaev’s social democrat government agreed to rename the country North Macedonia in a bid to placate fears about its ambitions. Any mention of Alexander was also removed from public infrastructure, with the airport being renamed Skopje international airport.

Passage of the accord has been set as a condition for Macedonia joining Nato and ultimately the EU.

In a dramatic vote, Zaev managed to muster the two-thirds majority needed to make the requisite constitutional changes last month after opposition MPs in the 120-seat parliament agreed to endorse the controversial agreement.

The lawmakers, almost all members of the nationalist VMRO party, have since been placed under armed guard because of security fears. There have been protests accusing them of betrayal.

A second batch of constitutional changes will be brought before Macedonian lawmakers in the coming days.

Speaking to reporters in Skopje ahead of his visit, Osmani described Greece as “a new strategic partner”, saying support for the name change was growing despite outrage among hardliners.

The treaty must be ratified by the end of the year before the Greek parliament is also called to pass it.

Dispelling criticism from nationalists in Greece – including his junior partner in government – the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, says he is also determined to pass the accord, now viewed as a rare foreign policy success.

Earlier this month, Greece’s alternate minister for foreign affairs described resumption of the direct route as “a very positive development” that would further boost economic cooperation between the two states.

Prior to the flight’s inauguration, travellers had been forced to endure an eight-hour car ride from Athens to Skopje or take connecting flights via Istanbul or Vienna. “We are delighted,” said Branko Geroski, a political commentator in Skopje. “It will open up a lot of opportunities for travel. Athens itself is a very desirable destination. This is great news and let’s hope the price [of an air ticket] is good too.” </s> Commercial flights between Greece and Macedonia have resumed after a break of more than a decade, as part of reconciliation efforts centred on a historic name-change deal between the Balkan states.

Greece halted the flights in 2007, in protest at a decision by Macedonia’s then nationalist government to name Skopje’s international airport after Alexander the Great, ruler of ancient Macedonia.

Macedonia’s prime minister Zoran Zaev removed the name in February in a goodwill gesture to Greece, as the countries sought to overcome a 27-year dispute over the ex-Yugoslav republic’s name and what Athens called its wrongful claim to the legacy of Alexander.

In June, they agreed the country would take the name North Macedonia – removing any clash with the Greek province of Macedonia – and in return Athens would stop blocking its neighbour’s efforts to join the European Union and Nato.

In the latest boost to relations, an Aegean Airlines plane took off from Athens on Thursday evening bound for Skopje, carrying passengers including Macedonian deputy prime minister Bujar Osmani; the Greek carrier expects to fly both ways between Athens and Skopje twice a week.

During talks in Athens, Mr Osmani called the air link “a symbol to the genuine relations that we are building” and tweeted: “Greece has become our greatest ally, neighbouring friend and biggest lobbyist within the EU.”

The name deal must still be approved by parliaments in both capitals and faces strong opposition from nationalists on either side of the border, but it overcame a major hurdle this month when Macedonia’s assembly narrowly agreed to start making constitutional changes stipulated by the pact.

Deputies and legal experts are now drawing up the draft amendments, and the government hopes to submit them to parliament for debate in the coming days.

Parliament will then vote on the draft changes, with only a simple majority required, before another debate and vote on the final amendments, when a two-thirds majority will be needed for the deal to receive Macedonia’s conclusive approval; the Greek parliament will then discuss and vote on the accord.

In securing a two-thirds majority for the October 19th vote, Mr Zaev’s ruling coalition persuaded eight opposition deputies to switch sides, prompting their expulsion from the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party and a small allied group.

Leaders of VMRO-DPMNE, which ran Macedonia from 2006-2017, accuse the ruling parties of bribing and threatening its members to secure votes; the government makes similar allegations against the nationalists, and deputies who crossed the aisle to back the name-change deal have been given police protection.

VMRO-DPMNE was finally ousted last year after Mr Zaev released wiretaps that implicated top members of the party in a range of serious crimes, including corruption, vote-rigging and illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people.

The party’s property assets were frozen this week as part of a money-laundering inquiry, and prosecutors announced the launch of a preliminary investigation into Macedonia’s nationalist president, Gjorge Ivanov, over his refusal to sign the name deal and other legislation.

Former VMRO-DPMNE leader and ex-premier Nikola Gruevski, meanwhile, has been ordered to report to prison by November 8th to start a two-year sentence for graft.
Prime Minister of Macedonia Zoran Zaev states that his country is ready to add a geographical qualifier to its name in order to end the dispute. He also says that his government renamed the country's main airport and a key highway.