Hope Fades For Early Macedonia 'Name' Deal

Stevo Pendarovski, the former advisor to ex-Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski, told Balkan Insight: "The talks are completely at a dead end. All the efforts for reaching a compromise, whether public or secret, have failed."

He said the standstill in the UN-led talks and the absence of an initiative from US diplomat Matthew Nimetz, the UN's long-term mediator in the talks, was an indicator things were not progressing towards any solution.

“Nimetz is nowhere to be found," Pendarovski said on Tuesday.

“The previous experience showed that Nimetz is active even if there is the slightest chance for success.

"So his absence in the past few months can mean only one thing, that the two sides are further away from a solution.”

He said there was “zero chance” for a compromise solution to be found before the NATO summit in November, seen as an informal deadline for making a breakthrough.

“If there is no announcement for a new set of talks by the end August, this would definitely sign trouble,” he said.

Macedonia needs an agreement with Athens to pave the way for it to join NATO and the EU.

Nimetz held the last round of name talks in late April but with no visible progress.

Since then both sides have indicated they are waiting for another initiative.

Athens and Skopje have been locked in a dispute over the use of the name Macedonia for 18 years.

Athens insists that Skopje’s official name, the Republic of Macedonia, implies territorial claims against its own northern province, also called Macedonia.

In 2008 Greece blocked Macedonia’s NATO accession pending a solution to the name.

Last December, Athens also blocked Skopje from getting the desired start date for its EU accession talks, despite a positive recommendation from the European Commission.