PM denies he's "ready to discuss changing Macedonia's name"

PM denies he's "ready to discuss changing Macedonia's name"

"That is a journalistic commentary, not my statement. I have said no such thing and we will react with the Guardian. It's obvious from the text itself that it is a journalistic commentary, not my statement. That's crystal clear. Such provocations happened before and will be happening and we are used to it," Gruevski said in a written statement on Wednesday.

According to Gruevski, "the topic of Macedonia's name is clearly becoming popular in this period."

"Just as we assumed such tendentious interpretations are expected, coming from those many who do not wish well to the process and need false exclusivity, or are working someone's agenda," he said.

The article refers to the name controversy as "a 24-year linguistic dispute" noting that after declaring independence in 1991, the country "formally referred to itself as the Republic of Macedonia - to the fury of many Greeks, who feel that their northern neighbours stole the name from the eponymous Greek province that lies directly to the south of the Macedonian-Greek border."

Moreover, "Greece has long accused Macedonia of appropriating significant aspects of Hellenic culture in order to build the national identity of a predominantly Slavic state."

Greece has been blocking Macedonia's membership in NATO and the EU. The country has been admitted to the UN under the name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

According to the Guardian, "after years of intransigence on both sides, Macedonia’s leader has now implied he may be prepared to cede further ground to Greece."

“We would like as soon as possible to go to dialogue with Greece to find a solution, and if we find a solution we have to go to the citizens and organize a referendum. Through dialogue we have to find some solution, and after that to ask the citizens: is this right or not right?," Gruevski has been quoted as saying.

The daily saw "other signals on both sides that the long-running dispute could be solved" and mentioned Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki's "optimism" ahead of his trip to Athens, the first in 15 years, and Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias's visit to Skopje in June that "ended an 11-year embargo."