Macedonian president Branko Crvenkovski says that without “serious changes”, the package of ideas offered by United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz to resolve Skopje’s dispute with Greece about the use of the name Macedonia cannot serve as a basis for future negotiations.

Crvenkovski said this in a statement issued on October 10, a few days after Nimetz unveiled his latest proposals to senior envoys from Athens and Skopje in New York.

The name dispute between Greece and Macedonia arises from Greek objections to Skopje using the name “Macedonia” for the country, which Athens says could be used to reinforce territorial claims by Macedonia in northern Greece.

Although Nimetz did not reveal details of his package of ideas in New York, media reports said that the idea was to call the country the “Republic of Northern Macedonia” while its language would be called Macedonian.

Skopje’s chief envoy to the name dispute talks, Nikola Dimitrov, briefed Crvenkovski on his return from New York, after which the president’s office issued a statement effectively rejecting the proposal and saying that Crvenkovski would call a meeting of Macedonian leaders to discuss a joint stance on the Nimetz package. The saga has been compounded of late by public dissension in Macedonia about how to respond to proposals in the process of attempting to resolve the dispute.

Greek daily Kathimerini said that diplomats in Athens were “reassessing the state of play” after the statement by Crvenkovski. The newspaper said that the Nimetz ideas had been cautiously welcomed by Athens earlier this week as “a very good basis for negotiations” although it “needed improvements in certain areas.”

“According to sources, Greek government officials are debating their strategy but will await further comments expected to be made by political leaders in FYROM over the next few days,” the newspaper said.

Crvenkovski, while generally seen as more open to compromise than the group around Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski, was quoted in September 2008 as saying that if no compromise was reached in the next few weeks, talks between Macedonia and Greece would be frozen for a year.

The story was complicated after, on October 9, Macedonia joined Montenegro in becoming the latest country to recognise Kosovo as independent, drawing the wrath of Serbia, which is adamant that the territory cannot be severed from it.
 
Bulgarian news agency Focus, quoting Macedonian agency Makfax, said that Serbian interior minister Ivica Dacic had said that Serbia should refer to Macedonia as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

Interviewed by news agency Fonet, Dacic said that Macedonia had shown that it did not respect Serbia’s position. Serbia had recognised Macedonia under its constitutional name while Greece had exerted pressure on Serbia to refer to it as FYROM.

“If we want to hit each other where it hurts mostly then Serbia would have to use the name that is used in the world – FYROM,” Dacic said.

On October 10, Serbia announced that Macedonia’s ambassador was being expelled from Belgrade. The previous day, it gave notice to Montenegro’s ambassador that she was being expelled.