President of North Macedonia Siljanovska: I will respect the Prespa Agreement

The President of North Macedonia, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, stated that she will respect the Prespa Treaty, BGNES reported.

Siljanovska said in Ohrid that "unlike others" she respects international law.

She emphasized that the way she will call the country is "a personal decision, a right that is guaranteed by higher acts than bilateral agreements."

Siljanovska announced that she has a plan "to convince the Greeks of the rightness of using the name "Macedonia" instead of the constitutional name of the country - North Macedonia.

"Of course I have a plan. The plan is to build good neighborly relations. The plan is to offer respect and demand respect. In politics, we must seek the art of the possible, we will do it soon. My first statement was that I will not go around the world , that I want to get to know my neighbors and I think I will achieve that. Of course, you need everyone around you to talk, and we have no choice but to talk. Dialogue is a healthy thing, and if there is no mutual respect, there will be none result. Politics requires dialogue and I am ready to seek it and mutually overcome the problems", said Gordana Siljanovska.

Regarding the warnings of official Athens that the possibility of starting a procedure against Skopje at the International Court in The Hague for non-compliance with the provisions of the Prespa Agreement is not excluded, the Macedonian president stated that Greece did not comply with the decisions of the same court.

BGNES recalls that during his oath on May 12, the new president Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova used only the name "Macedonia" instead of the official name - the Republic of North Macedonia. This caused a strong reaction in Athens and an international diplomatic scandal.

The contract was signed on June 17, 2018 in the village of Nivitsi on the shores of the Great Prespa Lake by the foreign ministers of both countries, Nikos Kodzias and Nikola Dimitrov, in the presence of Prime Ministers Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev. The agreement ended a long-running dispute over Macedonia's name between authorities in Skopje and Athens. | BGNES