Macedonia & Greece: Name Issue

[Risto the Great]

Hopefully the Turks step in and express their disgust also. We need Greece and Turkey to work together as one to stop Macedonia from shaming and destroying itself.

[Vangelovski]

When Macedonians don't know what to do (which is all of the time), they just fart on each others brains.

[vicsinad]

LOL I had to quote the following from this Greek Media outlet because I couldn't stop laughing at the selectivity of how they chose to describe what Ilinden represents - clearly exercising caution to not jeopardise/disturb that precious Tito narrative

I laughed when I read this,too...there are varying levels of propaganda. And then there's Greek Propaganda.

[Karposh]

Hopefully the Turks step in and express their disgust also. We need Greece and Turkey to work together as one to stop Macedonia from shaming and destroying itself.

Unfortunately, that ship has already sailed Risto. This cringeworthy bunch of imbeciles that are currently running the country have made sure of that. People think Ilindenska Makedonija is the trump card they have been holding all this time but I'm not so sure. Don't be surprised everyone when they pull out the Titova Makedonija card as the final solution.

[Solun]

When Macedonians don't know what to do (which is all of the time), they just fart on each others brains.

I'm not sure if that is what ovci do

https://vecer.mk/zabavna/jordan-mitev-povtorno-na-udar-na-grcite-nashite-juzhni-sosedi-pravat-od-nas-da-se

[Tomche Makedonche]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/macedonia-fm-latest-name-package-deserves-a-chance-05-21-2018

Macedonia FM Says 'Ilinden' Name Deserves Support

The latest package for solving the long-standing Macedonia-Greece 'name' dispute, involving the composite name 'Republic of Ilinden Macedonia', should be given a chance, Macedonia's Foreign Minister said

Macedonia and Greece need to show leadership over the latest proposal for a solution to the "name" dispute, which includes the name “Republic of Ilinden Macedonia” for all uses; otherwise they risk taking a step back in the ongoing "name" talks, Macedonia’s Foreign Minister, Nikola Dimitrov, said on Sunday.

“I don’t see a more adequate proposal over which both sides in the negotiations have [reached] consent,” Dimitrov told Macedonian 1TV late on Sunday.

“We are ready to defend this, and to persuade our people to stand behind this solution because we believe in it,” he added, warning: “If one component is removed, the entire package falls apart.”

In case of failure, the talks might take a step backwards over the issue of the span of use of an agreed compromise name, which has been covered in the latest package, he noted.

On Saturday, the Greek government issued a statement indirectly hinting at rejection of the package.

“We welcome FYROM’s [Macedonia's] acknowledgement that a name solution cannot be reached without adopting an 'erga omnes' [for all uses] name,” the Greek government statement on Saturday said.

“Nevertheless, we encourage our neighbours to continue to work together in an effort to find a mutually acceptable solution with a geographic or chronological qualifier in accordance with the package of proposals put forward by UN special envoy Matthew Nimetz,” it added.

On Sunday, Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev confirmed that this name was part of the latest package that he had discussed with his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, during the EU-Western Balkans Summit on Friday in Sofia.

Zaev said this name proposal had come from the Macedonian side and that he and Tsipras had agreed to take this proposal back to their respective countries in order to seek wider support, adding that he was ready to stand by it.

The indirect rejection from the Greek government, however, adds to existing uncertainty over the forthcoming next round of name talks between Macedonia’s Dimitrov and the Greek FM Nikos Kotzias due on May 24-25 in New York.

The proposal to call the country “Republic of Ilinden Macedonia”, for all uses, came as a surprise, as the term was not contained in the latest set of ideas put forward by UN mediator Nimetz. Most previous speculation mentioned the terms Northern or Upper Macedonia.

The term “Ilinden” refers to St Elijah's Day, marked on August 2, which is revered in Macedonia as a great national holiday marking the start of an uprising in 1903 against the Ottoman Empire. The rebels briefly formed a republic on the territory in and around the town of Krushevo, which lasted for ten days before being overrun by Ottoman forces.

The "name" dispute centres on Greece's insistence that use of the word Macedonia implies a territorial claim to the northern Greek province of the same name.

Athens insists that a new name must be found that makes a clear distinction between the Greek province and the country.

As a result of the unresolved dispute, Greece blocked Macedonia’s NATO entry in 2008 and it has also blocked the start of Macedonia’s EU accession talks, despite several positive annual reports from the European Commission on the country’s progress

[Spirit]

Little Zajko thought he was being clever. He still claims “Ilinden Macedonia” is still an option despite the fact that he’s been bitch slapped 6 ways from Sunday by the Greeks who are not interested at all. The fuckwit and his Neanderthal associates still don’t get it, the Greeks are not at all really interested in a solution apart from one that has no mention of Macedonia.

[Phoenix]

Little Zajko thought he was being clever. He still claims “Ilinden Macedonia” is still an option despite the fact that he’s been bitch slapped 6 ways from Sunday by the Greeks who are not interested at all. The fuckwit and his Neanderthal associates still don’t get it, the Greeks are not at all really interested in a solution apart from one that has no mention of Macedonia.

With Zaev eagerly brainstorming new identities for Macedonia in an effort to appease everyone, except the Macedonians themselves, he becomes that little dog that is baited by his master to perform new tricks for the reward of small treats.

He has no credibility left in the negotiation process, he has clearly shown he has no respect for Macedonia to stand as an equal, an independent and sovereign nation...the greeks have worked out this corrupt fool and are just sitting back laughing watching Zaev stripping off everything that is dear to Macedonia until he stands there bare arse. and bereft of identity itself.

[Spirit]

With Zaev eagerly brainstorming new identities for Macedonia in an effort to appease everyone, except the Macedonians themselves, he becomes that little dog that is baited by his master to perform new tricks for the reward of small treats.

He has no credibility left in the negotiation process, he has clearly shown he has no respect for Macedonia to stand as an equal, an independent and sovereign nation...the greeks have worked out this corrupt fool and are just sitting back laughing watching Zaev stripping off everything that is dear to Macedonia until he stands there bare arse. and bereft of identity itself.

Or to use another analogy. He is the little monkey and the Greeks are the organ grinders, he is dancing to the tune they are playing

[Tomche Makedonche]

The Bulgarians don't seem overly pleased

http://www.focus-fen.net/news/2018/0...eone-else.html

Georgi Parvanov, President (2002-2012): The name Ilinden Macedonia shows Skopje’s tendency to pass the problem on to someone else

The name Republic of Ilinden Macedonia shows Skopje’s tendency to pass the problem on to someone else, Georgi Parvanov, Bulgarian President in 2002-2012 and founder of political party ABV, told a press conference, Focus News Agency reports. He urged for a Bulgarian response because Macedonia was attempting to solve its problems with Greece at the expense of Bulgaria. In his opinion, the proposed name might partly appease someone in Greece because it represented a retreat from the idea of the ancient root of Macedonians. For Bulgaria, relatively acceptable are the names of Vardar and New Macedonia, he said. Georgi Parvanov declared ABV’s support for Macedonia to join NATO and the EU, but not at the expense of Bulgaria

[Risto the Great]

I imagine we are meant to be annoyed that the Bulgarians think Ilinden was their uprising. Which among all of this represents an exquisite new layer of bullshit in this process. And remains nothing more than a distraction from the fact that Macedonia should remain Macedonia.

[Bill77]

Just started wondering what the ISO given code would be for
"Ilinden Macedonia"

iMac?

Apple will be pissed.




By the way, this, a tweet from Antonio Miloshoshki......

#Greece's logic & #Macedonia's concessions: "Analysts say that since Skopje accepted the concept of erga omnes for Ilinden then it could do the same for another name."

Anyone, even those with half a brain could foresee this is going to happen.

[Tomche Makedonche]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-greece-politics-tsipras-analysis/with-eye-on-re-election-greek-pm-rolls-dice-on-macedonia-idUSKCN1IO1T6

With eye on re-election, Greek PM rolls dice on Macedonia

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is taking a big gamble in trying to settle a decades-old name dispute with neighboring Macedonia which could backfire in a pre-election year among voters already jaded by his economic austerity policies

With about 15 months until the next election is due, the 43-year-old leftist leader has already timed Greece’s exit from its third international bailout for this summer in the hope that this will start to bolster his currently poor poll ratings.

Despite trailing the main opposition conservatives by up to 20 percentage points in polls, Tsipras has now also opted to go where all his predecessors have failed, by personally reviving efforts to resolve the name dispute with Macedonia.

“He is determined to solve it,” said a government official.

Athens rejects Macedonia’s right to use that name, saying it amounts to a territorial claim on a northern Greek province of the same name and also represents an attempt by the tiny ex-Yugoslav republic to appropriate Greek history and culture.

Successive Greek governments have blocked Macedonia’s bid to join NATO and the European Union over the name dispute, which is of existential importance to Greek nationalists.

In February, hundreds of thousands of Greeks took to the streets of Athens over the issue, a bigger turnout than even the biggest protests held to oppose painful austerity measures imposed by Tsipras under pressure from Greece’s creditors.

“If a deal is done it would be a bonus. He will say ‘I pulled you out of bailouts, I settled the Skopje question’. That way he might make up for other losses,” an official from his Syriza party told Reuters on condition of anonymity

Skopje is the capital of Macedonia, a mainly Slavic state with a large ethnic Albanian minority which won its independence from Belgrade in 1991 as Yugoslavia dissolved into civil war.

WESTERN PRESSURE

Cracking the Macedonia riddle would earn Tsipras kudos in the European Union and the United States, long impatient with what they perceive as Greek obduracy over the name, which they see as destabilizing for the Balkans. Clearing Macedonia’s path into NATO and the EU would also help check growing Russian influence in the region, they say.

The clock is ticking towards an EU summit in late June where most member states want to extend a formal invitation to Macedonia to start accession talks, and a NATO summit in early July, where Greece’s allies also back Macedonian membership.

However, political analysts say it would be a big risk for Tsipras, whose Syriza party has already seen its support slide amid harsh fiscal reforms, record unemployment and pension cuts which have left a third of all Greeks living in poverty

“There is still a zero-sum mentality (among Greeks) on this name issue,” said Kostas Ifantis, an associate professor of international relations at the Panteion University in Athens.

“It’s an issue which involves history and symbols, and ... a compromise is very difficult in this case,” he said.

Among compromise names proposed over the years are Nova (new) Macedonia, Vardar Macedonia (named after a river), Upper Macedonia and, most recently, Ilinden Macedonia, but most Greek political parties reject any use of the name Macedonia, even with descriptive tags.

Those parties include both Tsipras’s coalition partner, the Independent Greeks, and the main opposition New Democracy party, currently tipped to win most votes in the 2019 election.

EXPLOITING DIVISIONS

New Democracy was also burned by the Macedonia issue when in power in the mid-1990s. A split between moderates and hardliners toppled the government of then-Prime Minister Constantinos Mitsotakis, and many of those who broke ranks then are now back in the party fold.

Now led by Mitsotakis’s son, Kyriakos, the party takes an uncompromising public stance on the name issue, but observers say the same divisions which existed in the 1990s persist.

Some analysts even suggest Tsipras is primarily motivated in his name diplomacy by a desire to split New Democracy.

“It is a gamble which was not taken with the aim of closing an open diplomatic problem that troubles the country but as a tool to divide, at least initially, the opposition,” Ifantis said.

In weekend consultations over the name, Tsipras failed to secure the support of any opposition party for the ‘Ilinden Macedonia’ proposal.

But for all the risks, a resolution of the name dispute could still ultimately help to boost Tsipras’s popularity, said Costas Panagopoulos, head of the Alco polling agency.

“There will be reactions from the opposition, regardless of the name, this is clear,” said Panagopoulos. “But in the long-term, a solution, despite the opposition and the initial protests... could not hurt Tsipras.”

[Niko777]

“For over 70 years, our northern neighbors have had a state entity both within the framework of the former Yugoslav federation and as an autonomous state, named ‘Macedonia.’ They bear a name which, in the absence of any other kind of qualifier, references the ancient Greek world and the weighty cultural heritage of Greek Macedonia. This is what we are trying to get back. It isn’t easy,” Tsipras said.

Article: http://www.ekathimerini.com/229037/a...ictory-says-pm

[Karposh]

“For over 70 years, our northern neighbors have had a state entity both within the framework of the former Yugoslav federation and as an autonomous state, named ‘Macedonia.’ They bear a name which, in the absence of any other kind of qualifier, references the ancient Greek world and the weighty cultural heritage of Greek Macedonia. This is what we are trying to get back. It isn’t easy,” Tsipras said.

This guy is meant to be a moderate but even his statement clearly articulates all Greeks' intentions with regard to their "northern neighbours". The issue, as he sees it (although not stated explicitly), is all to do with the Macedonian nation. His "northern neighbours", which shall remain nameless, have been randomly using the name Macedonia "for over 70 years" not because they are Macedonians but because Greece failed to object to the use of that name all those years ago. Now they are trying to make up for this past mistake and attempting to get it back by forcing a qualifier on their "northern neighbours". The name of the so-called Macedonian nation must be watered down to prevent them from appropriating the "weighty cultural heritage of Greek Macedonia". Greek propaganda at its best. Never mind the fact that "Greek Macedonia" only became Greek politically in 1913 and ethnically in 1922 (well Turkish anyway, and Greek much later).

If our politicians, and I mean all of them since independence, had any self respect or any respect for the Macedonian nation, then they should have ended the negotiations a long time ago. These name games are an absolute disgrace and a humiliating insult to all Macedonians past and present. Macedonia is called Macedonia because of its people and not the other way around.