{"id":38482,"date":"2019-04-02T16:22:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T16:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38482"},"modified":"2019-04-02T16:22:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T16:22:55","slug":"greek-pm-makes-first-official-visit-to-north-macedonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38482","title":{"rendered":"Greek PM makes first official visit to North Macedonia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has arrived in the North Macedonian capital Skopje to mark a “new chapter” in relations after the resolution of a bitter and decades-old dispute earlier this year.
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“This is a historic day. Until now, we only watched opportunities go by and time waste away,” Zaev said on Tuesday.
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The North Macedonian prime minister was exceptionally cordial, welcoming Tsipras outside the government building and even taking a selfie with him after formally posing for cameras.<\/p>\n

Zaev then showed Tsipras around his office and pointed to photos of his son and various memorabilia.<\/p>\n

“Our nations are showing how courageous decisions turn what was yesterday an impossibility today becomes reality,” he said after the meeting. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Tsipras is the first Greek prime minister to visit the neighbouring country since Macedonia was established first as a federal Yugoslav republic in 1945, then as an independent country in 1991.<\/p>\n

He arrived less than two months after Macedonia agreed to rename itself to North Macedonia<\/a> on February 12, ending a 28-year diplomatic dispute.<\/p>\n

Greece<\/a> claims the name Macedonia for its ancient northern province and its legacy, but eventually agreed to allow its neighbour to use the name with a geographic qualifier added.<\/p>\n

The row had led to Greece blocking Skopje’s entrance into international organisations, including NATO<\/a>.
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The two countries are now “starting a new chapter” on the “solid ground” provided by the name agreement, Tsipras said. <\/p>\n

The two leaders pushed the agreement through in spite of fierce opposition from nationalists on both sides of the border, each feeling that their country had conceded too much.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the North Macedonian news agency MIA published on Monday, Tsipras said the deal carried a steep political price.<\/p>\n

It was now up to him and Zaev to show that their people “can only benefit from the path now opened”.<\/p>\n

Reporting from Skopje, Al Jazeera’s Maja Blasevska said that the two leaders were focused on the future, with economic cooperation a priority.<\/p>\n

“Both prime ministers said that this is a very important message about this region, about the region and Europe, that countries need to go forward and not look to history,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Dozens of contracts have been signed today. Greek and Macedonian sides are expecting to boost economic cooperation. A business forum will be opened today in Skopje. Both prime ministers will attend the opening, which also be attended by representatives from more than 400 companies from both countries.”<\/p>\n

Additionally, Greece is to assume the policing and protection of the North Macedonian airspace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has arrived in the North Macedonian capital Skopje to mark a “new chapter” in relations after the resolution of a bitter and decades-old dispute earlier this year. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0“This is a historic day. Until now, we only watched opportunities go by and time waste away,” Zaev said on Tuesday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}