Thursday, April 24, 2008

Macedonia 'To Seize Moment' In 'Name' Row

he US envoy to NATO has said a fresh round of Macedonia-Greece talks over the long running “name” row will be held soon.

We will try to close this issue “within days or weeks, not in months” Victoria Nuland told local media after meeting the Macedonia’s President Branko Crvenkovski and Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski.

She urged Skopje to “seize the moment” and try to hammer out a compromise with neighbouring Greece while the issue is still in focus in NATO. Nuland said she was satisfied with the talks in Skopje.

This comes after Athens, last week, vetoed Skopje’s NATO invitation at the alliance’s summit in Bucharest. Athens has urged Skopje to change its constitutional name “Republic of Macedonia,” arguing that it might lead Skopje to make territorial claims over Greece’s own northern province of Macedonia.

As a result, NATO said the invitation for the country would be issued as soon as the row is settled.

However, it is not clear who would represent Macedonia and with what legitimacy if the country goes to an early elections soon.

The key Ruling party, VMRO DPMNE, Wednesday announced it will accept the initiative calling for Parliament’s dismissal filed by the main Albanian opposition party, the Democratic Union for Integration. Read more at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/9253/

The two parties have enough seats in the assembly to adopt the initiative that media report is scheduled to be put to a parliamentary vote on Thursday.

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