Macedonia leaves NATO summit, Greece hails success

[Ricardo Reis]

BUCHAREST -- Macedonia's delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest has decided to leave the event.

This comes in protest of the Western military alliance's decision yesterday not to invite this country to join its ranks, Beta news agency reports from the Romanian capital today.

Greece has blocked the invitation because of a long-standing dispute over Macedonia's name.

Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Miloshoski told journalists that the state delegation was leaving "in solidarity with the people of Macedonia, 90 percent of whom support Skopje's NATO membership".

"Тhese are difficult moments for a small nation," Miloshoski added.

Earlier, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said that Macedonia will be able to join the alliance "as soon as the dispute over that country's name with Greece is settled", and called for further negotiations in search of a compromise.

Skopje's chief negotiator, Nikola Dimitrov, said that the decision not to invite Macedonia to join will influence the stability of the Balkans.

"A wrong message has been sent, in the context of radical politicians and moderate forces. This is contrary to NATO's values. It will to a great extent jeopardize the stability in the Balkans," he was quoted.

Macedonia's prime minister and president, Nikola Gruevski and Branko Crvenkovski, are currently in Bucharest meeting with U.S. President George Bush. The delegation is exacted to leave the summit shortly after the end of this meeting.

Meanwhile, the Greek public is hailing the veto on Macedonia's NATO membership as a "great diplomatic success".

The media in Athens say that the government has won a serious diplomatic battle, whose goal is to settle the name dispute, rather than block Macedonia's membership.

The newspapers say that Greece won backing for this from France, Spain and Italy, while the U.S., Slovenia, Turkey and the Czech Republic all voiced "serious opposition".

Greece does not accept Macedonia's constitutional name because of its northern province, also called Macedonia.

Macedonia became a UN member as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but most countries that recognize it, do so at the same time accepting its constitutional name.

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