Greece-Macedonia Talks Planned

Rivals Greece and Macedonia will send their foreign ministers to New York next week for U.N.-brokered talks after four years of tension that has threatened to further destabilize the Balkans.

Dimitris Karaitides, head of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou’s diplomatic office, told reporters that Greece has adopted a U.S. statement released simultaneously in Athens, Skopje [the Macedonian capital] and Washington for the resumption of talks.

“Greece and FYROM [Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia] will send their foreign ministers to New York next week to complete an agreement which is the first important step for the creation of a basis for friendly relations between the two countries,” the statement said.

The announcement came a few hours after talks between Papandreou and the chief U.S. negotiator in the Balkans, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, who then flew to Skopje for talks with Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov.

Greece imposed a trade embargo on the landlocked republic in February, 1994, to force it to change its flag, bearing an ancient Greek symbol, and parts of its constitution.

Greece says its neighbor’s choice of name when it broke from the former Yugoslav federation in 1991 implied territorial ambitions against the Greek province of the same name. Under a U.N. compromise, the republic is known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Athens has said it will respond to the implementation of its desired changes by lifting the embargo.