Greek DM: We Respect Prespa Agreement, Skopje Should Do the Same

The Greek Minister of Defence Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos says in an interview for the Greek newspaper “Real News” that Greece respects the Prespa Agreement and hopes on reciprocity from Macedonia. “We respect the international law, and we demand the same position from our northern neighbours. Thanks to this agreement, we concluded our cooperation with Skopje last week, allowing Greece to watch over the air space of our northern neighbours, and if we did not do this, either Bulgaria, which is not very keen on the Prespa Agreement, or Turkey, which waits for a chance to increase its influence in the Balkans, would have taken on this assignment,” Panagiotopoulos says. On the other hand, the new Mayor of Thessaloniki Konstantinos Zervas sees the Prespa Agreement as a rather bad one. “I am quite sensible and patriotic on this subject, which is why I still refer the country north of Greece as FYROM or Skopje. We should have listened to history and the feelings of the people of Greece before accepting this agreement,” Zervas said.