BELGRADE (Reuters) - Macedonia’s must resolve a decades-long dispute over its name, implement judicial reform and build good relations with neighboring countries to join NATO, the Western military alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.
The country’s efforts to join NATO and the European Union have been blocked by Greece, which says the name Macedonia implies a territorial claim over Greece’s own northern region of that name.
Until the row is resolved, Athens has agreed only that the country be referred to internationally as “FYROM” (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), the name under which it was admitted to the United Nations in 1993, though the two states last week agreed to hold talks on the matter.