Friday, February 22, 2008

Silence follows Nimitz's proposal

A quit unusual silence follows the new proposal by Matthew Nimitz, the UN mediator in name dispute between Macedonia and Greece, as both countries remained tightlipped over its contents.

Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis declined to reveal any details on the proposal, tabled Tuesday during Nimitz's visit to Athens. Bakoyannis will brief the head of state and the political leaders about the blueprint.

No details have been released thus far on the late Tuesday's meeting of Macedonian top officials.

In the headline "Theatre of Shadows", Greek daily Ta Nea comments the silence on both sides.

Other Greek dailies said there are no official details on Nimitz' blueprint that was presented to negotiators of both countries, Adamantios Vassilakis of Greece and Nikola Dimitrov of Macedonia.

Citing unnamed sources, some dailies in Athens say the one-paged blueprint suggests five options to bridge name differences.

The pro-government conservative daily Kathimerini speculates that four out of five proposed names are Democratic Republic of Macedonia, Constitutional Republic of Macedonia, Independent Republic of Macedonia, and Republic of Upper Macedonia.

The pro-opposition daily Eleftheros Typos speculates that proposed names are New Republic of Macedonia or Republic of New Macedonia (in Cyrillic alphabet), Democratic or People's or Independent Republic of Macedonia.

The same source says it took just 25 minutes for mediator Nimitz to convince both negotiators to accept the proposal and hand it to authorities in Skopje and Athens.

Skopje's daily Dnevnik says Nimitz's blueprint remains top secret as long as the governments of both countries give their final say i.e. whether the proposal is acceptable or not.

In the headline "Nimitz tables proposal urging compromise", Utrinski Vesnik daily quotes Nimitz as saying that the proposal would lead to solution.

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