Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias was highly informative on Monday evening when referring to the latest developments regarding the resurrected fYRoM “name issue” and the accompanying resumption of UN-mediated talks between Athens and Skopje.
He also revealed that a “second element” in a looming proposal will include the term “Macedonia” as a geographic area, although his further comments pointed to its non-English usage.
“It’s very important that the word that will be used in a composite name, that it not be in English, but in the language or languages of the country (fYRoM)… in our opinion … it (word) must remain (in the original language) without being translated,” he said during a current affairs program on the state broadcaster, while pointing to “Sri Lanka” as an example in the continuing exercise in diplomatic semantics.
The obscure, by international standards, but sensitive bilateral issue between Greece and its northern neighbor, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM), still prevents a full normalization of otherwise exceptional relations between the two states – especially in trade, investment and visits by millions of citizens of either country to the other.
Kotzias cited the 1995 “interim agreement” as foreseeing a composite name with a time determinant (i.e. “new” or “nova”), “which cannot be overlooked,” as he said.
