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Greece, Macedonia foreign ministers endorse name deal

People protest against the deal between Greece and Macedonia on Macedonia's new name, North Macedonia, in the southern Macedonia town of Bitola on Sunday, June 17, 2018. Lawmakers voted 153-127 in the 300-member parliament against the motion brought by the conservative main opposition party over the deal to rename the former Yugoslav republic North Macedonia. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

PSARADES, Greece (AP) — The foreign ministers of Greece and Macedonia endorsed an agreement to resolve a long fight over the Macedonia name Sunday during a signing ceremony filled with history and symbolism.

The Greek village of Psarades, located on the shores of Great Prespa Lake, was picked for the occasion since the borders of Greece and Macedonia meet in the water.

The two countries’ prime ministers, Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and Macedonia’s Zoran Zaev, were there to see the deal they reached Tuesday get signed by their foreign ministers, Nikos Kotzias and Nikola Dimitrov, respectively.

Macedonians Zaev and Dimitrov arrived from across the lake on a small speedboat. Their Greek counterparts welcomed them with hugs on a jetty that was enlarged for the event.

Under the agreement, Greece’s northern neighbor will be renamed North Macedonia to address longstanding appropriation concerns in Greece, which has a Macedonia province that was the birthplace of Alexander the Great.

Greece in return will suspend the objections that prevented Macedonia from joining NATO and the European Union.

The two countries’ leaders said the signing would be the start of closer relations between them and an example for all nations in the Balkans region.

Recalling his first meeting with Zaev this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tsipras told him, “Very few believed we would succeed” in ending “26 years of sterile dispute between our countries.”

“This is our own appointment with history,” Tsipras said, adding that Balkan peoples long have suffered from “the poison of chauvinism and the divisions of nationalist hatred.”

Zaev, for his part, hailed an “end to decades of uncertainty.” Greece and Macedonia would henceforth be “partners and allies” in modeling successful diplomacy for the whole region, he said.

“May we stay as united forever as we are on this day,” Zaev said.

Following the signing, the officials took a boat to the Macedonian resort of Oteshevo for a celebratory lunch.

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