Gruevski claims he never rejected talks with Tsipras

Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras never initiated negotiations to former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski that he could reject.

With this claim yesterday Gruevski responded to Tsipras’ interview with the Financial Times, in which he says he had tried to initiate a discussion on the name issue in the time when former PM of North Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, was in power, but that he refused any kind of meeting. Tsipras stressed that he had informed German Chancellor Angela Merkel of his intention.
“Regarding Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ statement for the Financial Times, in which he points out that I as Prime Minister was unwilling to talk about finding a solution to the issue that Greece immediately opened after independence was declared regarding our constitutional name, I would like to point out that in fact Tsipras has never offered such talks that I have refused.
Before he assumed the prime minister’s post, I held intense talks with Mr. Papandreou with whom we had 10 personal meetings on this issue, but unfortunately due to the well-known Greek positions or red lines as they called them, we did not reach a solution, which would later be proposed to the citizens in a referendum. The end of my mandate and the beginning of Tsipras’ mandate coincided with only a year, from the beginning of 2015 to the beginning of 2016.
I remember only two interactions with Mr. Tsipras. The first one was, when, following his election as Prime Minister of Greece, somewhere in February 2015, I called him on the phone to congratulate him on his election as Prime Minister and establish an initial communication and cooperation initiative.
In that conversation, I proposed him, not he to me, to meet and talk about finding a solution to the issue that caused Greece to block our Euro-Atlantic integration, pointing out that he can choose the time and place for the meeting. His response was, formally speaking, positive and said that he would call me to discuss this issue as soon as he can. He never called back.
Accordingly, Greece has never had a problem for meetings and talks on my part, on the contrary, we encouraged them because we wanted to find a compromise that would unblock our EU and NATO integration process.
What was a real problem is that we did not want to accept an agreement with so many concessions on the national interests that Greece demanded and conditioned us with.
In fact, Mr. Tsipras himself in the same interview for the Financial Times clearly and sincerely says that the issue was not only about the name but also about identity and history,” wrote former PM Nikola Gruevski on Facebook.