Cyprus won't be lead to recognize the independence of Kosovo, foreign minister Markos Kyprianou said ahead of Monday's meeting of European top diplomats.

Kyprianou said that last week's announcement of the positive verdict of the UN International Court of Justice regarding the legality of Kosovo's independence will not affect Cyprus' position.

“The decision of the ICJ is restricted only to the specific question which refers to the procedure of the declaration itself. At the same time we believe that when a territorial integrity of a country is concerned, the issue is to be resolved by means of talks and negotiations, and not by unilaterally declaring independence,” said the Cyprus foreign minister.

Cyprus is among 5 EU member-states not to have recognized Kosovo, the other being Greece, Spain, Romania and Slovakia.

Source: novinite.com

According to foreign diplomatic sources, the FYROM finds the "Republic Macedonia (Vardar)" proposal acceptable, but at the same time the FYROM government demands that the new name should not be used for general use, which Athens insists on.They say that Nikola Gruevski has been given the possibility of choosing the lesser of two evils - a name proposal that will be more favorable for the FYROM or the range of use of the new name.

The same diplomatic sources say that Gruevski has allegedly sought that the attribute is not put between the terms "Republic and Macedonia" (for example "Republic Vardar Macedonia"), but to be added to the constitutional name with a hyphen or be put within brackets. 

On Thursday the Skopjan Assembly Foreign Policy Committee adopted conclusions whereby it almost fully sided with Turkey regarding the recent incident in international waters involving humanitarian aid intended for the Palestinian population. Although the conclusions mostly consisted of a condemnation of violence, in compliance with the Skopjan Foreign Ministry's previously expressed positions on this incident, the discussion itself moved toward explicit support for Turkey and Israel's condemnation. 

Turkish Ambassador Arslan Hakan Okcal, who was present as the commission's guest at the farewell meeting in connection with his withdrawal from office, entirely dedicated his presence to the recent flotilla incident, so during the debate initiated by the Skopjan side there was no mincing of words in expressing support for Turkey.

Pompous, combative, ultranationalist, and patriotic.  The battle to maintain approval ratings at any cost "justifies" politicians' language, which we hear and see in the media outlets on a daily basis.  All of them play the card of nationalism and pseudo-patriotism and it takes only one of them to start first and the others will follow suit.  The counter- effect from this sort of policy-making results in confusion in the masses, growing insecurity, and interethnic hatred.  Incidentally, this language accompanied by uncontrolled dictatorial gestures, used not only during election campaigns, is a blind imitation of the head of the cabinet.  The language that various headquarters of certain colors, ideologies, and different political camps - with it be the ethnic "Macedonian" or ethnic Albanian camp -  use to address the masses has to do more with personal issues, such as petty retributions against one another, than with reality.

The Bulgarian public gives between 3.2 and 3.9 points on a scale of 1 to 5 to the country's relations with each of its five neighbours, shows a nationwide representative survey conducted by the National Public Opinion Centre among 1,000 respondents between May 15 and 25.

Bulgaria's relations with the fYRoM receive the lowest score, 3.2 points. On the one hand, Bulgarians traditionally regard fYRoMians as closest to them in ethnic and cultural terms. On the other hand, a language of hatred for Bulgaria used by the fYRoM media, questionable fYRoMian interpretations of what Bulgaria views as its own historical moments, and poor treatment of Bulgarians in the fYRoM, a notable example of which is the case of Spaska Mitrova, create an impression of less-than-good-neighbourly conduct, the pollsters say.

Government spokesman George [Yeoryios] Petalotis on Tuesday 1 June, stressed that the government was following a "systematic, careful and very effective approach" in response to Israel's blood-drenched raid at sea on the Gaza Flotilla, a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in defiance of an Israeli blockade. At least 10 activists were killed by Israeli forces during the raid while several Greeks were among those detained by Israeli authorities.

Warmongering, false patriotism, a call for a public lynching, a lack of readiness to make historic decisions, putting blame on others, and even a standard political speech aimed at party members were the public views expressed yesterday concerning Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's address to the VMRO-DPMNE [Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity] Union of Young Forces two days ago.

The parties and persons that the prime minister referred to on that occasion assessed that he had thus definitively confirmed that he could not solve the name problem, which is crucial for the state's Euro-Atlantic future.

Instead, he was peddling false patriotism and putting the blame exclusively on "the other side."  The coalition partner, the DUI [Democratic Union for Integration -- BDI in Albanian], also criticized the prime minister.  They were all almost unanimous that it was insulting to describe the state's citizens as "a kind of nation [kakov-takov narod]."

Gruevski's claims that there was strong pressure from "various missionaries, politicians, and newspaper columnists" to change the name and his accusations that the opposition SDSM [Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia] had activated "the old stable of horses" were the key subjects in Gruevski's address, which he made only a few days after the Brussels diplomats' message that they had the impression that the EU and NATO were no longer the fYRoM Government's priority.