NEWS

LAOS leader warns against ‘Macedonia’ recognition

Giorgos Karatzaferis, leader of the far right LAOS party involved in Greece’s provisional administration, said his party would leave the crisis coalition if the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM, were to receive official recognition as ?Macedonia.?

The International Court of Justice on Monday ruled that Greece was wrong to block a bid by FYROM to join NATO in 2008. The Hague-based tribunal found that Greece’s veto breached a provisional 1995 deal under which Greece had agreed not to block membership of the country in international organizations if it used the name FYROM.

The ruling however does not resolve the fundamental dispute over the name. Greece objects to Skopje’s use of the name ?Macedonia,? saying it implies a claim to the northern Greek province that has the same same.

Karatzaferis, who also called for a referendum on the name of the former Yugoslav state, blamed LAOS’s bigger coalition partners ? PASOK socialists and New Democracy conservatives — for Monday’s ruling saying it came at a ?difficult time? for Greece.

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