Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Eleftheros Typos: Macedonia in close coordination with US

Greece was not notified about today's meeting of US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki, which confirms that Washington and Skopje work together, a Greek daily said.

Eleftheros Typos daily said nobody in Athens knew about Rice-Milososki meeting. Greek officials were caught by surprise with the unannounced meeting, which takes place one day before the visit of Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis to Washington.

The paper says Greece's allies in NATO and in European Union no longer pledge solidarity with Athens due to eventual veto on Macedonia's NATO entry.

The decision on Greek veto on Macedonia's admission to NATO will push the Costas Karamanlis' government to the wall, to diplomatic extortion and deadlock in the next 20 days, the pro-opposition daily said.

Even though Greek government made clear that non-resolution of name dispute would mean a veto on NATO entry, it is quite obvious that the strategy will be additionally shaped after the Bakoyannis-Rice meeting, and the issue is likely to be settled along with Kosovo independence.

If Greece quits veto, the move will have a high political price. Nonetheless, the eventual consent to Cyrillic transcript of Republic of Macedonia will be of much higher price, Eleftheros Typos daily said.

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