Nimetz: Name issue can and should be resolved next year, but no magical solution exists

The name issue can and should be resolved next year, UN mediator Matthew Nimetz stated Tuesday in Brussels after Tuesday’s talks with Macedonian and Greek negotiators Vasko Naumovski and Adamantios Vassilakis.

“After so many years, no new magical name can appear from nowhere and solve the issue. The solution will be found with political will and good diplomacy,” Nimetz said.

According to Nimetz the climate for resolving of name issue has been definitely improved both in Greece and in Macedonia. He said that today’s talks in Brussels are held in a good atmosphere. He announced that the talks will be intensified in the next period with new meetings in New York, in January, February and March.

“Certainly, there are difficult issues for both sides, but we will try to resolve them in the next months,” Nimetz said.

Nimetz assessed that governments in Athens and Skopje put the resolving of the name issue high on their agendas and intend to continue to work on improvement of mutual relations.

Nimetz said that he did not put forward a new proposal at today’s talks, held following a three-year break.

“New Macedonia” is the proposal to be discussed at the meeting of United Nations envoy Matthew Nimetz with the representatives of Macedonia and Greece in Brussels, Greek TV station “Star” reports.

The report claims that the path for the name issue’s settlement in the first half of 2018 would open if Skopje agreed with the proposal.

A name including a geographic qualifier such as “Northern Macedonia” is not acceptable for Greece, because this would “not prevent Skopje’s irredentism, implying the existence of Southern Macedonia, which is also not acceptable for Bulgaria”.

“Star” comments on the proposal’s acceptance within the government, especially PM Tsipras’s coalition partner Panos Kammenos, who has opposed the inclusion of word ‘Macedonia’ in the name of the northern neighbor. Regarding the opposition New Democracy, the TV station says the PM would not face major problems, since the proposal would be acceptable for some opposition MPs.

We have not reached a stage to talk about new names, said Prime Minister Zoran Zaev on Tuesday regarding reports by Greek media over name proposal “New Macedonia”.

“This is probably a proposal by media, we have not reached a stage to discuss new names. We believe that current talks will focus on the wish by both parties to go into the essence of the problem that Greece has with our constitutional name, PM Zaev told reporters at a joint press conference with Kosovo counterpart Ramush Haradinaj.

He expressed hope that the mutual wish of both sides to reach a solution would be confirmed under the mediation of UN envoy Matthew Nimetz.

“We have confirmed this and our negotiator has received such instructions. I hope the meeting will end positively so that we can further elaborate on possible solutions to the problem”, added Zaev.

Europe closely is following the negotiations, taking place in Brussels, between Macedonia and Greece under the auspices of UN’s envoy Matthew Nimetz, Wouter Plomp said Tuesday.

“It’s fair to say that no one expects the issue to be settled tomorrow, but it is important that some positive initiatives have emerged in the past few months and that things are headed into a positive direction,” the Dutch Ambassador to Macedonia said in his lecture on the State of Play of Human Rights at the Faculty of Security in Skopje.

According to him, the Dutch government has no position involving the name dispute.

“I can only say that my government hopes the two countries will find a solution,” noted Ambassador Plomp.

The last formal round of talks between the UN mediator and the two countries’ negotiators was held in New York in Nov.