The thorny “name issue” still poisoning relations between Greece and its neighbor to the immediate north, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Yugoslavia (FYRoM), over what Athens calls the neighbor and what the neighbor calls itself, generated headlines a world away last week, in Australia.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald touched on the “name issue”, Australia’s official policy and even links with a South Asia version of the “name issue” – Myanmar or Burma? The occasion was a football game between Australia and “FYR Macedonia” as the national team of the Balkan country is officially listed.

According to Daniel Flitton, who bylined the extensive and carefully written article, “The (Australian) government maintains Australia’s use of FYROM is ‘temporary’, and will continue only until Skopje and Athens find a resolution. That stalemate seems unlikely to soon break.”

He continues: “Greece’s ambassador in Canberra, Charalampos Dafaranos, praises Australia for taking “a very good position”. His Macedonian (sic) counterpart, Vele Trpevski, disagrees. “Yugoslavia died a long time ago,” Trpevski says.

While Athens stands by its use of FYRoM, in line with the United Nations, the EU and NATO, some major western countries, such as the US, Canada and the UK recognize the land-locked former Yugoslav state as the “Republic of Macedonia”.

The article picks up on that fact and notes that despite the temporary name at the UN and EU “… Britain, Canada and the United States have gone the other way, brushing off Greek concerns about territory in northern Greece also known as ‘Macedonia’, and formally abandoned references to Yugoslavia in their diplomatic relations with Skopje.”

Of course, it’s the “territory in northern Greece” leitmotif in practically every story by reliable media on the “name issue” that is slightly “out of focus”. The province in northern Greece known as “Macedonia” is the land that more closely approximates historical and geographical Macedonia, whereas the territory of the former Yugoslav state to the north encompasses only a portion of geographical “Macedonia” and an even small portion of what’s known as the ancient Kingdom of Macedon.