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Wednesday, May 18, 2005

SEE Portal - Homepage / News / News:Macedonia - Round-Table Discussion on Differences Between Macedonia and Greece

"One World Net" is one of the many US/EU sponsored organisations in Eastern Europe to promote their values. IWPR is also one of these pseudo-human rights groups that promotes US/EU interests. It disturbs me that Macedonian politicians appear to jump when these posers snap their fingers. One of these days, I will put together a list. However, having said all that, Macedonians seem to standing firm..

SEE Portal - Homepage / News / News:Macedonia - Round-Table Discussion on Differences Between Macedonia and Greece

Elena Simonoska

18 May 2005

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting and the Balkan Research Net organized a round-table discussion yesterday in Skopje, to discuss the difference on the name of the country between Macedonia and Greece.

How far has Macedonia gone in the dispute on the name? Will it have to concede some ground? What would be the impact of this issue on the European integration of the country? Why aren’t the details on the dispute presented to the public? These were the key issues discussed at yesterday discussions.

Emil Kirjaz, State Secretary with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Aleksandar Dimitrov, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Saso Klekovski from the Macedonia Centre for International Cooperation; Borjan Jovanovski, a reporter; and Iso Rusi, Editor-in-Chief of “Loby” weekly, participated in the discussion.

Aleksandar Dimitrov, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, emphasized that the Government’s approach and policies on the name issue is both sterile and frigid, having in mind that it sticks to the two-names formula which has been outdated. He added that the way out is in a completely open non-partisan discussion of the essential issues related to Macedonia.

According to Borjan Jovanovski, the latest Greek initiative endangers the Macedonian position on the name. The very fact that EU so much as discussed the name-dispute is a victory for Greece and reiterate the passivity of Macedonian diplomacy.

Saso Klekovski believes that the goal of the propaganda surrounding this dispute is to convince the citizens of Macedonia that the final outcome does not depend on their wishes, which couldn’t be farther removed from the truth. He concluded that no other issue has as large a support (70 percent in the latest polls) as the name issue, especially compared to the ratings of leading political figures, which don’t exceed eight percent support.

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