Macedonia Needs Name Solution to Advance NATO Bid

On a visit to Skopje, top US state department official says that the name dispute between Greece and Macedonia must be resolved before Macedonia can join NATO. Philip Reeker, US deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said on Wednesday that despite a recent court ruling in favour of Macedonia, Skopje and Athens must reach a solution to their name dispute before Macedonia can join the alliance.
“The ruling of the ICJ is the ruling of the International Court of Justice. It is very much a fact. On the other hand NATO - the North Atlantic treaty- is itself a law that requires consensus,” Reeker said after his meeting with Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.
“The obligations that membership in NATO requires mean that existing members as well as new members must be comfortable and all agree to do that,” he added.



Athens and Skopje are locked in a two-decade long dispute over Macedonia's name. Citing the unresolved issue, Greece has blocked Macedonia’s progress towards both EU and NATO membership.
Greece insists that use of the term "Macedonia" by its neighbour implies a territorial claim to its own northern province of the same name.
Reeker's trip to Skopje came shortly after the ICJ in December last year ruled that Greece breached the Interim Accord signed in 1995 by blocking Macedonian membership in NATO at the Bucharest Summit in 2008.
Macedonia has indicated that it hopes to use the international court ruling to persuade NATO to accept its membership bid at the alliance's summit in Chicago in May.
Reeker, who was the US ambassador to Macedonia until August 2011, said that the ICJ ruling can serve as a catalyst for the negotiations.
“As we said before, we believe that the ICJ decision provides an excellent opportunity- a catalyst- to reenergize the effort to find a solution to move forward so that Macedonia can receive an invitation to NATO,” he said.
Reeker noted that Macedonia has been on the agenda since 2008, and that it will continue to receive US support. The only essential development in order to move forward, he stressed, is agreement on a solution to the name issue.
In a statement released after the meeting on Wednesday, the prime minister's office reiterated that the ICJ ruling served as positive momentum for the country's EU and NATO bids.
“The ICJ ruling was discussed as a positive momentum for the Euro-Atlantic intergration of our country. We also discussed the latest round of negotiations over the name issue, which were held under the UN auspices,” the press release said.
A meeting this week in New York between Macedonian and Greek negotiators, and UN mediator Matthew Nimetz, ended without concrete results.