NEWS

Ex FYROM president dies

Kiro Gligorov, the first democratically elected president of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia who served two terms at the helm of the country in the 1990s as it became independent from Yugoslavia, has died. He was 94.

The head of Gligorov?s office, Zivko Kondev, said Monday that the former president died in his sleep at his home in the capital, Skopje, on Sunday evening.

Gligorov became president of the country in January 1991, when it was still a Yugoslav republic. He led his countrymen through a referendum, in which they voted for independence.

He was considered a moderate on the name dispute with Greece. «We are Slavs and moved to the region after Alexander the Great was here,» the late politician once told a Greek newspaper.

[Combined reports]

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