Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has warned the new leadership of North Macedonia that it must comply with the agreement on the country's name, otherwise Athens will block its path to EU membership. This is reported by Kathimerini, UNN reports.
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Referring to statements by newly elected President Gordana Silianovska-Davkova and Prime Minister Christian Mickosky about their unwillingness to honor the agreement on the country's name, Mitsotakis warned: "When you pull the rope, you have to be prepared for it to break.
If the leadership, he said, "deviates from the agreed course, the road to Europe will be closed.
This road, he added, “goes through Greece and the observance of international law.
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The name dispute between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has been going on since 1991, when the latter declared independence and adopted the name Republic of Macedonia. Athens believed that the name “Macedonia” could lead to territorial claims to the Greek region of the same name, so it insisted on changing the name of the neighboring country.
In 2018, Athens and Skopje agreed that the state would be renamed the Republic of North Macedonia.
On February 12, 2019, the country announced that it had changed its name to North Macedonia.
After that, Greece withdrew its objections to North Macedonia's accession to NATO and application for membership in the European Union.