[ALBSA-Info] Agreement due on final name for FYROM – Kathimerini

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Agreement due on final name for FYROM
Gornamakedonia said to be it

By Tom Ellis Kathimerini

Following nearly a decade of negotiations, Athens and Skopje are very close 
to an agreement on the name under which the Former Yugoslav Republic of 
Macedonia will be known. Officials from both countries find the solution 
satisfactory and believe that once this last hurdle has been removed 
bilateral political and financial relations will improve while Greece and 
FYROM will be able to develop a strategic cooperation.

The crisis affecting FYROM rendered such an agreement practically possible 
while providing the government in Skopje with the political excuse to alter 
the country's constitutionally-established name, which for years it had 
steadfastly refused to do.

Although United Nations-supervised talks between the two countries' UN 
ambassadors have effectively ended, Ljubco Georgievski's government argued 
that it would be practically impossible to secure the two-thirds 
parliamentary majority required to revise the constitution.

But the fighting of the past few months that poses a threat to the country's 
very existence, and which led to an agreement on a national unity government, 
is expected to result in a change in the constitution that will set the 
Albanian minority on an equal political status with the Slav majority.

This revision will include replacing the current constitutionally-established 
name of "Republic of Macedonia" with "Gornamakedonia" - Upper Macedonia - 
which Greece wants to see used as one word. As it does not contain a 
geographical reference (such as "Northern Macedonia," for example, would 
involve) the name will offer no opportunity for future territorial claims or 
demands for union with Greece's province of Macedonia.

EU defense and foreign policy chief Javier Solana helped seal the agreement, 
by making clear to government officials in Skopje during his recent visit 
that Brussels desired a final solution on the matter of the country's name.

Washington also contributed to the agreement, while UN Secretary-General Kofi 
Annan discussed the matter with Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou last 
week in New York.

Papandreou briefed opposition leader Costas Karamanlis on the matter, as well 
as his New Democracy party's shadow foreign and defense minister, Dora 
Bakoyianni.
According to ND sources, both Karamanlis and Bakoyianni assured the minister 
that they will do their best to offer support for the solution.