BELGRADE STILL KEEPING MACEDONIA ON ICE

Subject : macedonia and its neighbours

AIM Skopje, March 6, 1996

If last year's signing of the Greek-Macedonian agreement in New York eased the tensions between Skopje and Athens and lifted a great burden off Macedonia's chest, persistent postponement of Belgrade to recognize the Macedonian state after lifting of the sanctions and to normalize relations with it are certainly a cause of its new concern. It seems that at this moment Macedonia's greatest problem is its northern neighbour - Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with which it has no established diplomatic communication on the official level. This served as the main alibi for the newly appointed commander of United Nations preventive forces in Macedonia, to claim in his promotive statement that reasons for the "blue helmets" to remain in this republic still exist.

According to his words, Macedonia still has not established diplomatic relations with one of its neighbours (read: FRY), borders with it still have not been officially ratified, so all risks for peace have not been eliminated. He reminded that in such a situation border guards of one and the other party happened to go astray to conditionally speaking "the other's" territory and presence of United Nations soldiers was useful in avoiding incidents. This was obviously a reminder of an incident reported two years ago when border guards took possession of an elevation near the three-border point between Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria, Cupino Brdo, crossing the still unratified borderline and trespassing on Macedonian territory.

It is true, though, that news about imminent mutual recognition between Belgrade and Skopje keep leaking from diplomatic circles in Skopje to Macedonian media, claimimg that an agreement has already been formulated, and that the only thing left to do is to have the two heads of diplomacy put their signatures on it. These obvious wishes of Skopje have been closely followed by Greek media which have also for quite some time been announcing mutual recognition between Belgrade and Skopje as a "fait accompli". Moreover, they write that Belgrade will do it in an extremely painful way for the Greeks, because it will recognize Macedonia under its constitutional name - "Republic of Macedonia" - which is unacceptable for Athens. One of the privately-owned Macedonian television stations, "A1" announces that this Gordian knot tied around Belgrade's recognition of the Macedonian state will be resolved in the end of this week, assessing that the new head of Macedonian diplomacy, Ljubomir Frckovski, will be travelling to Belgrade because of it.

It will not be surprising, however, if this should be just another of many announcements on "mutual recognition by the end of the week", which have already been announced by Macedonian media for more than a month now. The harsh reality, however, denied them equally peristently. There are no serious reasons why it should not happen this time, too. Because, twice already Belgrade failed to do it, although recognition was imposed by the centre of European politics as a condition for normalization of relations between the FRY and the Europan Union which would, should it happen, return its ambassadors to Belgrade and let it come closer to international cashboxes. Instead of recognition, however, Belgrade resorted to various political manoeuvres. First, just before a session of the European fifteen, Belgrade announced that it had adopted a draft plan for normalization of relations. Then, before the meeting of the European ministers in Brussels towards the end of last month, Belgrade took pains to forward the information through the independent Serb news agency "Beta" that the chief of Serb diplomacy, Milan Milutinovic, had travelled to Skopje in order to finally put his signature on the document on normalization of Yugoslav-Macedonian relations. This too proved to be fictitious.

Although the European Union generally did not take the bait, Paris, nevertheless, normalized its relations with Belgrade. Does the centre of Serb politics rely again on misunderstandings within the Union and does it expect that other members will follow the example of Paris? It is possible. However, calculations recently presented by the major Macedonian political daily "Nova Makedonija" should not be discarded either. Namely, it quite logically concluded that "if Macedonia cannot be a trump card in the hands of Belgrade in its attempts to outwit the international community about the position of the Serbs in Bodsnia, or the status of Eastern Slavonia", it certainly can be useful in the forthcoming negotiations about Kosovo. But, in the meantime, Europe announces that apart from recognition of Macedonia, another condition - human rights - will be imposed on Belgrade, which again brings the "Albanian issue" back into the orbit.

It is not out of the question that one of the reasons for the Serb-Montenegrin Yugoslavia hesitation with recognition of Macedonia lies in the fact that the latter refuses to accept customs union with the former. As published in Skopje, this was refused by Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov a day before the attempt on his life on October 3 last year. And the offer was allegedly formulated by Serb President Slobodan Milosevic himself in talks with Mr. Gligorov during his first official visit to Belgrade. In any case, doubts that Serb politics has not given up its ambition to link Macedonia to itself and its interest in some way, are not completely unfounded.

On the other hand, one could say that Macedonia is doing quite well with other neighbours. Although the main issue of dispute between Athens and Skopje has not been resolved - for the Greeks the still unacceptable name of the Macedonian state - Liaison Offices were opened in the two countries which are to play the role of some kind of diplomatic representatives until the dispute is resolved. Athens has lowered the price of its visa for the Macedonians from 30 to six German marks, and in the middle of this month a large Greek economic delegation is expected in Skopje, with representatives of eighty Greek companies, several banks, and it will be headed by the president of the Association of Exporters of northern Greece. Albania and Bulgaria, as everybody knows, have recognized the Macedonian state under its constitutional name, and occasional disturbances seem to be getting into more peaceful waters.

Bulgarian Minister of Transportation, Stamen Stamenov visited Skopje and sent a series of favourable signals. Apart from having talked with his Macedonian colleague about accelerating construction of the traffic corridor between the East and the West, primarily construction of a railroad which will connect Bulgaria and Macedonia, Stamenov handed the chief of Macedonian foreign ministry, Mr. Frckovski, the invitation of the Bulgarian foreign minister to come visit Sofia as soon as possible. In any case, it seems that relations between Bulgaria and Macedonia, which had come to a head due to refusal of Sofia to sign a series of documents in Macedonian language questioning authenticity of the Macedonian nation, almost reached the point of melting. Tensions were relieved with Thirane too. One must have in mind, though, that the most influential Albanian party in the Macedonian parliament, the Party of Democratic Prosperity, continues participating in the Government as a coalition partner in the reconstructed Government of Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski. All things considered, persistent refusal of Belgrade to normalize relations with Skopje is obviously the most painful thorn in Macedonia's flesh when speaking of its relations with the neighbours.

VERA GEORGIEVSKA