US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that Washington is trying to help resolve the name dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) but that it fully supports the efforts of United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz.

She made the comments after talks with Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis in New York. “We want to see the matter solved as soon as possible,” she said. “We are trying to help find a solution that will be accepted by both sides.”

US sources told Kathimerini that Washington wants both sides to show that they are willing to compromise.

Meanwhile, FYROM President Branko Crvenkovski told the UN General Assembly that his country’s dispute with Greece was “an obvious absurdity” but that Skopje was willing to compromise on the name issue as long as it is not “humiliated.”

“The Republic of Macedonia is ready to accept a fair compromise and reasonable solution that is not going to deny our national and cultural identity,” he told world leaders.

“We should not allow ourselves to be humiliated and to experience internal destabilization due to ill compromise.”