Source: A1 News
Translated by Sashk Jankovska
The Greek Minister of Foreign Affais, Dora Bakoyannis, admitted for the first time that the Greek Government ruled to block the entry of the Republic of Macedonia into NATO during the summer of 2007.
In her speech before several government ministers and representatives of the ruling New Democracy party on February 16, 2009 (organized by the Kostas Karamanlis Foundation), the head of Greek diplomacy confirmed that the veto for Macedonia was prepared a whole year before the Bucharest Summit, explains the MIA correspondent in Athens.
“Ladies and gentleman, the Greek Prime Minister and the Greek Government did not lie for even a moment. We knew the strategy we would pursue regarding the so-called “Skopje Question” even in the summer of 2007. The decision was made. Regardless, during no point of the pre-election period did we allow this information to leak to the public, as to have done so would have damaged the interests of the country,” Bakoyannis said during her speech.
Assessing Macedonian external affairs as “a bad Balkan syndrom of the past,” the Greek minister stressed that behind the Bucharest blockade stood “legitimate and concrete preparations with the expensive support of the diaspora,” which succeeded in convincing the member-states of NATO of the justifiability and credibility of the Greek arguments.
In her speech woven with a dose of triumphalism, Bakoyannis attempted to convince the assembled that Greece succeeded in protecting her most important and top-priority national interests — Skopje, Cyprus, and relations with Turkey.
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