Cyprus-Forum.com

[brother]

Greece forbids plane carrying Macedonian PM to fly over its territory
Published: 3/15/2005

 
 
SKOPJE - Macedonia has officially protested to Greece after a plane carrying Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski was prevented from flying over Greek territory, a government spokesman said Tuesday.

Buckovski was on his way to Turkey on Monday in a special government flight when aviation authorities in Athens notified their Macedonian counterparts that the flight did not have permission to use Greek air space, Dusko Uzunov said.

He said the problem stemmed from a long-running bilateral dispute about Macedonia's name, which Greece refuses to recognise as it is the same as the northern Greek province of Macedonia.

Macedonian Foreign Minister Ilinka Mitreva lodged a protest with the Greek Liaison office in Skopje, stressing the flight ban was "not in interest of good neighbourly relations," the spokesman added.

Macedonia joined the United Nations as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM, but several countries including the United States, China, Russia and Turkey have recognized its constitutional name of Macedonia.

Greece has threatened to block Skopje's bid to join the European Union and NATO until it changes its name.

[brother]

It seems very un-eoropean the way greece is acting, and yet again its willingness to use the E.U in its own games i fing dis-tasteful.

[boulio]

kind of like the ROC IS NOT allowed to fly over turkish airspace.

[brother]

They are not europeans just yet.