UK government joined forces with US to overcome name row between Greece and Macedonia: Wikileaks

London, 5 February 2011 (MIA) - The British government has been engaging and will continue to engage with senior Greek leadership to encourage Athens to be more flexible in its position on the Macedonia name issue, Wikileaks reveals as it releases details from a confidential cable sent by the US embassy in London to Washington in April 2008, which have been published on the website of "Daily Telegraph".

Citing a discussion with ex-Foreign Office official Adam Bye responsible for Balkan countries, the cable says that the British Ambassador to Greece had met with Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis on April 14 where he noticed "a little improvement of Greece's position" in terms of the usual explanation that "Skopje refuses to be flexible and that Greece has worked as hard as it could within the UN mediating process," MIA's correspondent reports from London.

At the meeting, Bakoyannis also added that progress was unlikely before the June 1 early elections in Macedonia. 

According to British diplomat Bye, who is quoted in the US cable, the government in London was engaged with the US administration to find a way out of the "Greece-Macedonia impasse" and its impact on the NATO membership, the Balkan stability and in the longer term, EU unity.

Talking to the US diplomat who sent the cable, the British official said London would continue supporting US efforts to remove the Greek blockade on Macedonia's accession to NATO and that UK would lobby other EU members to exert influence on Athens.

"UK shares the US desire that this issue be resolved within the next few weeks, but it is more likely to require a 'sustained push' at least until the Macedonian elections on June 1," Adam Bye has said.

Furthermore, he confirmed that ruling and opposition parties had been urged not to politicize the name issue or appeal to nationalistic instincts to gain support during the election campaign.

A separate document, titled "NATO, Macedonia, Invitation: UK Efforts Fail to Move Athens", sent by the US embassy in London on 4 Feb. 2008, unveils a statement by the Foreign Office political director Mark Lyall Grant that high-level UK intervention with Greece, including an appeal from FM David Miliband to his Greek counterpart Dora Bakoyannis at an EU meeting, had failed to shift Athens off its hard-line position.

Lyall Grant discussed the matter also with then US assistant state secretary Daniel Fried.

The UK's view is that now that Macedonia has accepted a compromise name proposed by UN envoy (Matthew) Nimetz, maximum pressure must be brought to bear on the Greeks, reads the document.

Lyall Grant said it was unclear whether Greece was using the name issue to block any Macedonian accession to either EU or NATO, or whether a modifier currently unacceptable to Skopje - such as "Upper Macedonia" or "Northern Macedonia" - would mollify the hard-liners in Athens. According to Grant, it would likely require head-of-government level intervention at the Bucharest NATO summit to move the issue. He also noted that Paris could be problematic, given ongoing French-Greek military contract negotiations.

In the document released by Wikileaks, it is stated that UK will resume efforts to settle the issue in coordination with the US and other like-minded allies.