3 January 2018
Dear Mr Nimetz,
The World Macedonian Congress (WMC) calls upon yourself to end the current UN-brokered name negotiations with Greece and to stand with the people of the Republic of Macedonia, to respect values and principles of the rights to self- determination enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and ask you to call for Macedonia’s UN membership under its constitutional name as ‘The Republic of Macedonia’.
WMC believes it is time for the 20-year fallacy of ‘name negotiations’ to cease. It has become abundantly clear to the Macedonian public that successive governments in Macedonia have been coerced into being participants in these negotiations and we believe that a brokered solution to Greece’s problem with Macedonian identity is unsustainable and will eventually lead to catastrophic instability in the region. We believe the ‘negotiations’ themselves are not limited to the name of the country as professed but an attempt by Greece to destroy the Macedonian identity, greatly increasing the regional tensions in the Balkans that they are supposedly attempting to alleviate.
WMC believes that any further negotiation on Macedonia’s constitutional name only perpetuates a documented, internationally illegal act and Greece’s comical attempt to submit offensive name solutions only serves to perpetuate the discrimination by the Greek government towards the Macedonian people. We believe it is a direct attack on Macedonian ethnicity on either side of the international border with a view to the eventual destabilisation of the Macedonian nation and eventual territorial partition.
The Greek government has continually sabotaged and upended any attempt at Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integration in the past with its perpetual international promotion of the offensive ‘interim UN reference’ and has actively blocked Macedonia’s ascension in the Euro-Atlantic and International sphere of acceptance in an attempt to hold the nation hostage to its international integration ambitions. It highlights Greece’s preparedness to flaunt international conventions to achieve strategic territorial goals on and around its borders. Nowhere was this more evident than Greece’s illegal economic blockade of Macedonia in the 1990’s and subsequent veto of Macedonia’s NATO membership process which flew in the face of all NATO and EU international protocols.
According to the North Atlantic Treaty itself, any European state that meets the requirements of the treaty via their allocated Membership Action Plan is eligible for membership. Macedonia has actively contributed to regional and global security at NATO’s request as outlined in Macedonia’s NATO (MAP) with significant contributions to ISAF in Afghanistan and numerous other International peacekeeping missions throughout the world, often in numbers exceeding contributions from established NATO members.
As a result, in 2008, Macedonia anticipated an invitation to join the NATO alliance yet, despite fulfilling all necessary requirements for membership, Macedonia’s accession was vetoed by Greece. This veto was subsequently challenged by the Republic of Macedonia in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2011. The ICJ ruling declared Greece’s veto of Macedonia’s membership a unilateral violation of the 1995 Interim Accord in which Athens agreed not to impair Macedonia’s integration into Europe and by association, waived its right to veto Macedonia’s membership over the ‘name dispute’.
It highlights Greece’s flagrant contempt for international law when it comes to Macedonia and is completely at odds with the principles established by the UNCHR, which has criticised Greece over this issue and reiterates that diplomatic recognition of Macedonia under its constitutional name ‘the Republic of Macedonia’ is the only course of action that satisfies its criteria for international justice.
The whole ‘brokered negotiation’ process is highly discriminatory and offensive to the Macedonian people and there is no precedent in international law that has granted any government the authority to dictate to any sovereign nation what name it should take. The Republic of Macedonia is the only nation in the world to face such discrimination by being denied the right to use its own name in its United Nations membership.
WMC staunchly reiterates its support for the constitutional and rightful name of the Republic of Macedonia. We formally reject all attempts to impose any other name upon the Macedonian nation, its people and we call upon you and also the current Macedonian government to cease these ongoing UN-brokered negotiations to change Macedonia’s name.
In addition to this we call on the UN, EU and NATO to formally ratify full recognition of Macedonia under its constitutional name as the ‘Republic of Macedonia’ and for the current Macedonian government to submit a resolution before the UN General Assembly to be re-admitted to the UN under its constitutional name the ‘Republic of Macedonia’ in full compliance with the Charter of the United Nations and all international laws and conventions governing rights to self- determination.
To date, 137 nations have recognized the ‘Republic of Macedonia’ by its constitutional name, which equates to approximately two-thirds of the UN General Assembly and WMC also calls on those nations who have not formally recognised the Republic of Macedonia’s constitutional name to subsequently do so.
As an authorised Executive National Director and on behalf of International Chairman Todor Petrov along with Co-Executive Chairmen (Australia) Mr. Jim Stefanovski and Mr. Goran Kotev, as well as ALL other international WMC Branches, we thank you for your attention and we trust the information contained above sees you delivering us a positive response to the above. We hope to hear from you in due course.
Kind Regards
Tony Kitanovski
National Executive Director for State Affairs – WMC-Australia
International Spokesman for State Affairs – World Macedonian Congress
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