Macedonia naming dispute

Bulgaria would maintain control over the area until their capitulation in September 1918, at which point the borders reverted (with small adjustments) to the situation of 1913, and the present-day Republic of North Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

In a letter to the Secretary General dated 25 January 1993, he argued that admitting the republic "prior to meeting the necessary prerequisites, and in particular abandoning the use of the denomination 'Republic of Macedonia', would perpetuate and increase friction and tension and would not be conducive to peace and stability in an already troubled region.

[43] The naming dispute has not been confined to the Balkans, as immigrant communities from both countries have actively defended the positions of their respective homelands around the world, organising large protest rallies in major European, North American and Australian cities.

After Australia recognised the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in early 1994, tensions between the two communities reached a climax, with churches and properties hit by a series of tit-for-tat bomb and arson attacks in Melbourne.

[77][78][79] The Greek foreign minister, Dora Bakoyannis, stated that "the Hellenic Parliament, under any composition, will not ratify the accession of the neighbouring country to the EU and NATO if the name issue is not resolved beforehand.

[89] Following his visit to Athens in an attempt to persuade the Greek government not to proceed to a veto, the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer implied that the onus to compromise rested on the Republic of Macedonia.

[98][99] On 7 March 2008, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Daniel Fried, made an unscheduled visit to Skopje, with the message that the two sides must cooperate with Matthew Nimetz to find a mutually acceptable solution for the naming dispute.

[103][104] The possibility of a failure of the ascension talks was met with unease by the ethnic Albanian part of the population that places more importance on EU and NATO membership than on the Macedonia name issue.

[106] The daily newspaper Dnevnik reported that diplomatic sources claimed that this would be the last attempt from the American leadership to help in finding a solution, and that the target of this effort would be for the country to retreat from its position in regard to a "double name formula" and for Greece to accept something along these lines.

[112] A special meeting outside the auspices of the UN was arranged on 21 March 2008, at U.S. ambassador's to NATO Victoria Nuland's house in Brussels, between the two foreign ministers Dora Bakoyannis and Antonio Milošoski and with the presence of the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Daniel Fried.

NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced the mutually agreed text of the NATO members, which included the following points: A major concern cited by Greek officials was a number of maps that have circulated by nationalist groups based in Skopje depicting parts of Greece (including Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city) as being part of a future United Macedonia, and the country's prime minister photographed laying a wreath under such a map just a few weeks before the summit.

[128][138][139] The U.S. proposal for inviting the country under its UN provisional reference (FYROM) was backed by Turkey, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, Bulgaria, and Norway;[128] Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada were reported neutral.

[141] Since coming to power in 2006, and especially since the Republic of Macedonia's non-invitation to NATO in 2008, the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE government pursued a policy of "Antiquisation" ("Antikvizatzija") as a way of putting pressure on Greece and for domestic identity-building.

[143] As part of this policy, stations and airports were renamed after Ancient Macedonian figures, and statues of Alexander the Great and Philip II of Macedon were built in several cities across the country.

Because, dear friends, the dignity and identity of an entire nation is at stake here that cannot be compromised.Later on, they moved into an open discussion where the Greek Ambassador to the U.S. Alexandros Mallias stated that Greece would accept the last proposal by the UN Mediator Matthew Nimetz for the international use of "Republic of Northern Macedonia".

[295][296] The international community, NATO and European Union leaders, including Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, as well as heads of neighboring states, congratulated the Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

[f] Furthermore, the Republic of North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev in his congratulatory message to his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras whom he called "a friend", described the ratification as an "historic victory", which "ends a long-standing diplomatic conflict between Athens and Skopje".

It concerns the conduct of a UN member state, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which contravenes the fundamental principles of international law and order; specifically, respect for good neighbourly relations, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The name issue is thus a problem with regional and international dimensions, consisting in the promotion of irredentist and territorial ambitions on the part of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, mainly through the counterfeiting of history and usurpation of Greece's national, historical and cultural heritage.

The Greek interest does indicate the concern of public opinion in the face of intransigent provocations on the part of Skopje that tend—as is evident even in the school textbooks—not only to appropriate but even to monopolise the history, the cultural achievements, the symbols—including the ancient ones—the monuments, and the personalities that were active in the Macedonian area in the past.

[318] The historian Eugene Borza summarises historic controversy surrounding the naming dispute as "... one of the enduring characteristics of modern Greek life: a desperate attempt to regain a past glory, rooted in cultural accomplishments of antiquity and the religious and political might of Byzantium.

[58] The policy of antiquization, i.e. efforts by ethnic Macedonians to construct a narrative of ethnic continuity linking them to the ancient Macedonians in various ways[320] and symbolic actions underlining such claims, such as the public use of the Vergina sun symbol as a flag of the Republic of Macedonia, or the renaming of Skopje International Airport to "Alexander the Great Airport"[321] met strong criticism from the Greek side, international media[citation needed] that report on the issue, and even from moderate political views in the Republic of Macedonia itself.

[322][323][324] A 22-meter-tall statue, "Man on a Horse", depicting Alexander the Great, was erected in 2011 in Skopje, the capital city of the Republic of Macedonia, as part of a historical public arts building campaign.

[327][328] The project received criticism by the European Union, calling it "not helpful"[327] as well as by Skopje architects and ethnic Macedonian academics[328] and politicians[105] commenting on the aesthetic outcome and the semantics of such a move.

[315] More moderate positions suggested that a disambiguating element should be added to the name of the neighbouring state and its people (such as "Vardar", "New", ""Upper" or "North"), so as to illustrate the distinction between not just the two, but all groups of self-identifying Macedonians.

Various demonstrations and protests in the Republic of Macedonia[354] and the ethnic Macedonian diaspora were held to support their view that their right to self-determination was violated by what they regarded as the rejection of the name from the international community.

After the division of Macedonia in 1913, Greece carried out a policy of Hellenisation of the local population, forcing geographical and personal name changes, religious affiliation, and writings of church frescoes and graves to Greek.

[374] A political party promoting this line and claiming rights of what they describe as the "Macedonian minority in Greece"—the Rainbow (Виножито)—was founded in September 1998; it received 2,955 votes in the region of Macedonia in the 2004 elections.

[374] Critics often treat it as a dialect of Bulgarian, due to their close structural affinity and mutual intelligibility in both written and spoken forms; they also point to Macedonian's recent emergence as a separate standard language, and the political motivation behind its promotion in the mid-20th century.

The Department has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumours and semi-official statements in favour of an "autonomous Macedonia", emanating principally from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected state.