A new name was intended to end decades of diplomatic deadlock. But nationalists in both Greece and Macedonia are unhappy at the choice – Republic of North Macedonia.

Thousands of people in both countries took to the streets to protest against a deal they say is tantamount to a humiliating defeat. A far-right Greek newspaper went so far as to run a front-page graphic – showing Greece‘s prime minister, foreign minister and president being shot by firing squad for treason.

Between the end of World War Two and the early 1990s, Macedonia was one of six republics comprising the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It declared independence in 1991 under the name – the Republic of Macedonia.

Greece immediately opposed it, seeing it as a veiled challenge to Greek sovereignty over its northern province that bears the same name.

Inside Story Al Jazeera News – 14 June 2018
Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam
Reporting: John Psaropoulos
Guests: Borjan Jovanovski, chief editor of NOVA TV
Panos Polyzoidis, political analyst and journalist
Dimitar Bechev, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council

 

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