Thessaloniki mayor Boutaris says Macedonia is not only Greek

Boutaris said compromising is not a bad thing

“The notion that Macedonia is only Greek and nothing else is bad. When you go about solving a problem, you have to see the problems of the other side. The irredentist tendencies must end. It’s not just the name. If our neighbours still have irredentist trends in the Constitution, it does not change the issue”, Mayor of Thessaloniki Yiannis Boutaris said. A day after the large rally that saw hundreds of thousands of Greeks protest in the city against the use of the name Macedonia by FYROM, Mr. Boutaris argued the rally did not help negotiations at all. “It did not solve the problem and the word compromise is not a bad one”, he told the Athens News Agency. The Mayor of Thessaloniki said he would raise the issue of vandalism against the Jewish holocaust monument at the city council. Some individuals had sprayed the word “Golden Dawn” under the sculpture.