UN mediator on Macedonia name dispute to visit Athens, Skopje in July

United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz is to visit Athens and Skopje at the beginning of July after meeting representatives of Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in New York on Tuesday.

The negotiator met diplomats Adamantios Vassilakis and Zoran Jolevski to discuss the two countries’ name dispute. Nimetz said the meetings gave him a chance to review each side’s positions but that no “new ideas” had emerged during the talks.

Vassilakis said FYROM’s intransigence is holding up a deal. “Greece wants a solution but the other side has done absolutely nothing so far,” he told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency. “It holds exactly the same position it did in 1995.”