Macedonia Protests Over Greek Minister Comments
Politics, Region Friday, January 16th, 2009Skopje | 15 January 2009 | Skopje has officially protested at the European Commission in Brussels over comments by the Greek Culture Minister that Macedonia will soon dissolve and be carved up between a ‘Greater Albania’ and a ‘Greater Bulgaria’.
Macedonia’s mission in Brussels condemned the statements by Antonis Samaras as “counterproductive” for bilateral relations, and expressed concern that no one in Athens had denounced them yet, local A1 TV said.
Skopje and Athens have been locked in a dispute over Macedonia’s name for 18 years. In April last year Greece blocked Macedonia’s NATO invitation arguing that use of the name implies territorial claims over its own northern province that is also called Macedonia.
On Saturday the newly-appointed minister said in an interview for Greek national television ERT that the end of the dispute would come naturally as Macedonia — which Greeks refer to as simply ‘Skopje’ – dissolves and is swallowed up by its neighbors.
“Time is on our side”, Samaras said. “I believe that Skopje will not survive as a single country and that Greece has nothing to fear from the creation of ‘Great Albania’ and ‘Great Bulgaria’.”
Samaras has long been a hardliner on the “Macedonian Question” and other Greek national issues, and was publicly behind the idea of an “Orthodox axis” in the Balkans during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
Skopje warned that such statements could additionally get in the way of the next round of UN-sponsored talks, scheduled for February 11.
This is the fourth time Macedonia has launched an official protest against Greece in recent months. It has protested over Athens banning its national air carrier MAT from flying over Greece, over alleged police cruelty against ethnic Macedonians living in Greece and over the arrest of Macedonian journalists who tried to report on the event.
It has attracted criticism in turn over its decision to rename its main highway “Alexander of Macedon”, for the ancient conqueror whose origin is part of a dispute that has come to encompass history, geography and genetics.
(Reporting by Sinisa-Jakov Marusic)
Source: Balkaninsight
Short URL: http://www.albanianeconomy.com/news/?p=1654
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This Samaras interview was made in March 2008.
The Skopjan government should stop bothhering with Greeks and Bulgarians.
Please tell them to get a life of their own..
This is the reality….FYROM is only hurting itself by denying its population’s Bulgarian and Albanian roots by brainwashing them into believing they’re decendants of Alexander the Great…..There was nothing Slavic about the ancient Macedonian Kingdom.
You athenians don’t realise that your ‘slavic’ argument is flawed: there is no such thing as a ‘slavic’ ethnicity. ‘Slav’ is a linguistical group. No one on earth is ‘slavic by blood’. If you did a bit of research you find that fact out quite easily. Our Macedonian language belongs to the slavic family of languages, and our ethnicity is, and always will be Macedonian.
Also, if you did your research, you would have found that there is no physical evidence of a ‘slavic migration’. This theory was put forward by the same super powers that help create the athenian nation for the first time in existence in the 1830′s. Never before this was there an athenian nation. Look it up yourself.
Everyone on earth except the athenians knows us as Macedonians, and we don’t have a name issue, it is only you athenians who have an issue with our name. So you tell me who has the upper hand in this issue that you athenians have created yourselves?
Macedonia can only be Macedonian. Christian turkish settlers who were transplanted and settled from Anatolia to Macedonia after 1913, cannot be Macedonian. The best they can be is christian turkish, or athenian.
Smrt za tie sho sakaat da ja unishtat Makedonija!
Today’s Macedonians are descendants of the Antic Macedonians, says research results from the Swiss Genealogy Institute iGENEA. For a second time an independent research institution confirms what Oxford and Madrid University confirmed a decade ago.
iGENEA is the most famous global Genealogy institute who once again frustrated the Greek government by confirming the direct connection between the Macedonians today and in Antic times.
The question came from a Greek citizen who asked iGENEA the following question: “What are the roots of today SlavMacedonians”.
The Institute responded: “Before all, they are Macedonians, not slavMacedonias as you referred to them for political reasons. The largest part of the Macedonians are direct descendants of the Antic Macedonians. Only a minor portion have a Slavic connection”.
iGENEA backed up their findings with hard numbers. However, tying the today’s Macedonians with Antic Macedonians is not the only disappointing information for Greece. According to iGENEA, only 32 percent of Greek citizens have Macedonian, Hellenic and even Arab origin. iGENEA further explains that 31 percent of Greek citizens have Celtic roots, 12 percent Germanic and Slavic origin, while 11% have Illyrian roots.
iGENEA also negated the Illyrians roots of the Albanians. In stark contrast to Albanian beliefs, IGENEA says the Albanians have the least Illyrian roots. Only 20 percent of the Albanians have Illyrian roots, while 40 percent of today’s Bosnians have Illyrian roots.
In the past several months, the iGENEA Genealogy Institute had been flooded with requests by Greek Citizens who, ironically, did not care for their own origin, but all questions were aimed at the Macedonians’ origin. iGENEA in its research uses DNK analysis, historical, archeological, and anthropological sources.
Alexander the Great became king of Macedonia when his father, Philip II , was assassinated in 336 bc.
He took immediate measures to quell insurrections, both at home and abroad, establishing himself as a powerful Macedonian leader.
Alexander led his Macedonian troops in campaigns against ‘Greece’, Egypt, and the Persian Empire successfully conquering all and ruling most of the classical known world by the time he died in 323 bc at the age of 33.
His celebrated Macedonian military and tactical genius share renown with his egotism and ruthlessness.
Regarding all genetic studies: where exactly did they find the DNA of an ancient Macedonian?
Macedonia is not afraid of “one” dog that keeps barking. We are advised to stand still and not argue any points with the CHristian Turks aka “Modern Greeks”.
Ita only a matter of time before the whole TRUTH comes out. No need for us to tell our ignorant neibours our game plan.
ps: Turkey will wipe out half of Greece, if they dont become members of EU and NATO.
Is this a “hate website” ?
All I see is references to Christian Turks, Slavic lingiustics ( which BTW was not created until bout 1000 AD) and hatred towards Athenians , I presume that means Greeks, and a culture that Alexander the Great spread throught the whole world, he must have been a very anti Greek guy, how else to explain his name, Father’s name, Mother’s name, sister’s name ( posibly lover’s name) etc etc etc
Get a life
Hey guys, if you guys are macedonians and you claim to be descendants of ancient macedonians, so are the Greek guys. So you guys must be brothers! Why are you hating each other? Calling the others names is not achieving anything. Abuse did not help anyone, it hurt a lot of people.
Alexander said he was Greek. Macedonians in antiquity called themselves Greek. Now if slav speaking macedonians call themselves descendants of the ancient macedonians, then this is very simple indeed: Slavspeaking macedonians are Slavspeaking Greeks. I dont think there is a problem with that, but you would never accede to that if you have said so many things against the Greeks.
Gruevski said something very interesting in this respect: he wanted slav Macedonians who have come from Greece to be given a Greek passport. He is one of them (his family came from what today is Greece). Does he want a Greek passport? The Greek government should give it to him…
Contemporary Macedonia newer was inhabited by ancient Macedonians. This territory was inhabited from ancient times from Paeonians a and another tribes, that doesn’t have nothing common with ancient Macedonians. Search in Google with “paeonians Maceodonia”, “paeonians Vardar” and see this:
http://books.google.com/books?q=paeonians&hl=bg&as_brr=3
Please do a bit of research on iGENEA on internet: it doesn’t have a very good reputation.
Macedonia could have waited a little after it came independent to settle their own affairs before they started to bother with Greece. It would have helped the country greatly. Instead Macedonian politicians keep indulging themselves in the kind of remarks about which Fried said “Nationalism … is like cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you.”. If Macedonia’s politicians go on like this they may end up proving Samaras right.
Don’t worry time is on our side cause even if we don’t get into Nato and the EU union at least we still have our country and loads of countries and there people on our side supporting us and they will make sure nothing bad ever happens to Macedonia and stuff the name issue we might have our countries name as F.Y.R.O.M but people call us Macedonians and not F.Y.R.O.M the only people that call us F.Y.R.O.M is Greece and Cyprus and them brain washed Serbs who are on the Greeks side who should be on our side and not there side and also why don’t they call Serbia Yugoslavia or call them Serbs (F.Y.R.O.S) cause they are the ones who made Yugoslavia with some help of them Slovenians in the 1st place?
don’t worry there will never be a greater Albania or a greater Bulgaria cause where are those 2 countries gonna get more land from to make there countries greater? don’t worry U.S.A will stop them 2 countries from making greater Albania and greater Bulgaria and yes Greece will have to worry about there neighbours cause they might steal some land of Greece or Albania and Bulgaria might fight each other for more land to make there countries greater as they like to call it.
and as for Macedonia Greece can try take Macedonia on and steal more of it’s land to make greater Greece cause that will never happen cause we got the 2 strongest countries in the world on our side and supporting us mother Russia and China and we got heaps of other countries on our side supporting Macedonia too like India and etc… so Greece can’t do anything to Macedonia so they better get used to the name Macedonia sooner or later
Justinski