Albania Urges Macedonia, Greece to Resolve the Name Dispute

TIRANA, April 9 – Albanian authorities have insisted that neighboring Greece and Macedonia should resolve their dispute over the latter’s name, which prevented Skopje from receiving a NATO membership invitation at the Bucharest summit.
Last week, NATO leaders agreed at a summit in Romania to invite Albania and Croatia to join the alliance. However, Greece blocked Macedonia’s invitation. Athens says the country’s name implies a territorial claim to a northern Greek province called Macedonia, and says it cannot allow its northern neighbor to join until the name issue is resolved.
Some fear that the continued lack of a solution could encourage radical ethnic groups in Macedonia, and that would “become a problem for the region,” according to Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha. At last week’s summit, a Greek veto prevented Macedonia from receiving an invitation. NATO said it can be brought into to the membership talks immediately if a resolution is found to the dispute over the country’s name, which Greece rejects as a threat to its northern province, also called Macedonia. Appathurai said the unpredictable nature of the national ratification procedures made it impossible to say whether an early solution to the name issue might yet lead to Macedonia joining at the same time as the other Balkan nations. Meanwhile, he said NATO would soon open an “intensified dialogue” with Bosnia and Montenegro that could place them on the path to eventual membership. A similar offer is open to Serbia, which is in dispute with several NATO nations over their recognition of Kosova’s independence.
Macedonia has been engulfed in a political dispute among it political parties after an ethnic Albanian opposition party called for parliament’s dissolution earlier this week, arguing the government was incapable of “handling challenges.”
The Democratic Union for Integration of Ali Ahmeti made the claim after NATO leaders failed to invite Macedonia to join the block along with Albania and Croatia at last week’s summit in Bucharest.
Macedonia’s governing conservative party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said it will support a motion to dissolve parliament, a vote that would lead to early general elections.
In Athens, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said Wednesday that she hoped talks could restart immediately.
“We express the sincere desire to follow the joint declaration of NATO, which calls for a solution (to the name issue) to be followed by an invitation to join the alliance,” Bakoyannis said.