Western leaders and international organizations do not have a back-up plan on the Macedonian name deal in case the upcoming referendum on the bilateral deal with Greece on the country's renaming fails, Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov said on Monday.
BELGRADE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2018) Western leaders and international organizations do not have a back-up plan on the Macedonian name deal in case the upcoming referendum on the bilateral deal with Greece on the country's renaming fails, Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov said on Monday.
In June, Athens and Skopje reached an agreement to rename the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to the Republic of North Macedonia. FYROM will hold a referendum on the issue on September 30. A number of European and US officials have recently personally visited Skopje to call on the Macedonians to back the renaming at the upcoming vote.
"All leaders, from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who visited us on the 27th independence anniversary, pointed out the absence of a back-up plan," Dimitrov said, as cited by the government's press release.
The country's new constitutional name will open the way for Macedonia's accession to the European Union and NATO, which has long been blocked by Athens over concerns that the neighboring country might have territorial claims to Greece's own region of the same name.
