Name Deal Close, Greek Media Say

“It appears that the two countries are set to agree on the name of the Vardar River being used to differentiate the Republic of Macedonia from the region in northern Greece by the same name,” Sunday’s edition of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini says, citing unnamed sources.

The newspaper also cites western diplomats as saying that they have noticed visible progress in negotiations since last year when the prime ministers of the two neighboring countries launched a series of direct meetings.

Since Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou came to power in the autumn of 2009, he and his Macedonian counterpart Nikola Gruevski have held several brief face to face meetings. No specific details of the talks have been made public.

There has been no reaction by Greek or Macedonian officials to the most recent claims of a possible name deal.

Kathimerini backs its story with last year’s statement by Risto Nikovski, an advisor to the Macedonian President Georgi Ivanov, that one possible compromise name would be the Republic of Macedonia (Vardar) that would differentiate between the state and the Greek province of Macedonia and at the same time would not require Skopje to change its constitution.

The UN mediator in the 18 year long name dispute, US diplomat Matthew Nimetz, held his last round of name talks in February. Media then mentioned the possibility that both countries might agree to the name Republic of Northern Macedonia, but that has not yet happened.

However, Nimetz’s office insists that he “is in very frequent contact with both parties”, as UN Deputy Spokesman Ari Gaitanis said last week.

Athens and Skopje are locked in a dispute over the use of the name Macedonia. Athens fears that Skopje’s official name, Republic of Macedonia implies territorial claims against its own northern province with the same name.

In 2008 Athens effectively blocked Skopje’s NATO accession over the name row, and made a similar move last year to stop Skopje from getting a date for the start of its EU accession talks.