By Douglas Hamilton
BELGRADE, March 7 (Reuters) – FYROM took out full page ads in the Western press on Friday to complain that its neighbour Greece is unjustly blocking the path to membership of NATO because FYROM refuses to change its name.
It said Macedonia had already made concessions to Athens, including a constitutional amendment denying any territorial aspirations to the Macedonian provinces of northern Greece.
There had been no security incidents since the former Yugoslav republic declared independence in 1991, one ad said. Skopje and Athens have had diplomatic ties since 1995. Greek companies are the major investors and the atmosphere is friendly.
“Despite this cooperation, Greece announced that it will veto the accession of the Republic of Macedonia to NATO (and) is asking for support for this stance from the other NATO members.”
A second advertisement topped by a photograph of Macedonian troops under NATO command in Afghanistan ticks off 30 reasons why “Macedonia deserves NATO membership”, because it has met all democratic, economic and military standards.
“Where is the principle here? Where is the justice?” asks the government. “Not to be able to be and call yourself what you have been for centuries — is that freedom and justice?”
Greece and Macedonia signed an interim pact in 1995 to cool the name dispute, which had triggered a serious Greek economic embargo in the early years of the republic.
But the row has dragged on, with Greece denouncing Macedonia’s “irredentist, nationalistic intransigence”.
THE PARTY OF THE FIRST PART
United Nations special envoy Matthew Nimetz, who has the task of shuttling between the feuding neighbours, said on Thursday that Skopje was showing “intense interest” in solving the dispute before NATO’s April 2-4 summit in Romania.
Greek newspapers say suggested names include the Democratic Republic of Macedonia, the Constitutional Republic of Macedonia, the Independent Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of New Macedonia and the Republic of Upper Macedonia.
The comic aspect of the row was unconsciously highlighted on Friday by the Macedonian ad’s reference to Greece as “the party of the first part”, an echo of the Marx brothers’ hilarious dialogue lampooning lawyerly disputes.
But Greece has been unswerving in its opposition to what it regards as usurpation of the name Macedonia by a Slav people who arrived on the scene a thousand years after Alexander of Macedon, the Greek hero Alexander the Great.
The republic of Macedonia has borne that name since it was created as part of federal Yugoslavia after World War Two. But the name goes back to 500 B.C. and the region known as Macedonia takes in parts of Greece, Albania, Serbia, and Bulgaria.
Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski says changing names is “too high a price to pay” for NATO membership.
If Macedonia is left out while Croatia and Albania join the alliance, he says, it will be a slap in the face to NATO powers and a blow to the fragile Western Balkans region.
“A Greek ‘No’ to Macedonia is a ‘No’ to the governments of the United States, Germany, France, Turkey, Slovenia and all other NATO members who are interested in seeing Macedonia, Croatia and Albania as members of the alliance,” he said.
Some Macedonians concede, however, that his government’s renaming of Skopje airport last year was an ill-timed gesutre of defiance. It is now called “Alexander the Great Airport”.
