Former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and former North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev presented the inaugural ‘Prespa Peace Award’ to Matthew Nimetz, the former UN Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, during a conference in Athens.
According to amna.gr, Nimetz, who served as the UN Special Representative from 1994 to 2019, received the award at the first International Conference for Peace and Sustainable Growth. The event, hosted by the Alexis Tsipras Institute and the Zoran Zaev Institute, took place at the Athens Conservatory on Monday and Tuesday.
At a special ceremony exactly six years after the signing of the Prespa Agreement (2018), Nimetz appealed to all sides to “follow and respect the Prespa Agreement and work hard for its implementation,” adding that if there are points in the Agreement that need work, then they need to “sit down together and resolve them.”
Nimetz also thanked the former and current UN Secretaries General who supported the Agreement, and particularly the peoples of the two countries. He noted that his greatest contribution was that he persisted and worked on the issue for 20 years, with 18 of these being listening to the two sides and perhaps contributing something in the last two years.
All important agreements, he said, tend to involve compromises, and he cited as examples the US Constitution, the Versailles Treaty, and the UN Charter.
Prior to the awarding, a videotaped message by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was screened, while the ceremony was also attended by SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Stefanos Kasselakis.
Source: amna.gr
