Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Defence Minister and leader of the minor coalition party in the Greek government, Panos Kammenos expressed his belief that the people of FYROM would reject the proposal put forward for the new name of their country.
The leader of ANEL called for the negotiating process with FYROM to halt and for a council of political leaders to be called in order for the 1992 decision on the Macedonian issue to be revised.
According to Mr Kammenos, the agreement on the table contains the terms of the Karamanlis deal in 1992. Mr Kammenos reiterated his party’s position on the matter to not support any solution with FYROM that could contain the name or a derivative of the name Macedonia. He warned that if the agreement in its current form came to parliament, he would compel his deputies to vote against it.
Asked about the terms of the agreement with FYROM, he said that “I see terms that are strong enough with regard to Slavic origin, Slavic language, clarification of the history of Macedonia, Alexander the Great etc. I have never seen such terms included in a proposal put forward by Greece. If the part of the name Macedonia was absent we would not be bound.”