The head of Greece’s liaison office in Skopje, Ambassador A. Papadopoulou, made a demarche today to the Foreign Ministry of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia regarding events that took place at the Vevcali“carnival” that were extremely provocative and insulting to Greece.
Ms.Papadopoulou protested the fact that the carnival in question, which receives state funding and was inaugurated by the FYROM Minister of Culture, was on the theme of “Greece’s funeral”, with participants wearing garments imprinted with an irredentist map and the Vergina Sun, and also burning a Greek flag.
It was underscored to the FYROM Foreign Ministry that beyond the fact that there was no official condemnation of these events, the FYROM Culture Minister even called the carnival a “diamond of ‘Macedonian’ tradition.”
Ms. Papadopoulou requested that the FYROM Foreign Minister condemn these outrages officially and unequivocally, and that he take the necessary measures for assigning blame and avoiding similar incidents in the future; incidents that do not help toward improving relations between the two peoples and are not compatible with the values of the European Union and the principles of good neighborly relations.
January 19, 2012