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Kremlin stresses Macedonia’s potential NATO membership is Skopje’s sovereign decision

MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/. Macedonia’s possible accession to NATO is that country’s domestic issue, but Moscow’s attitude towards the process of moving the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders has remained unchanged, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

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"That’s the sovereign affair of Macedonia itself. We appreciate and value our good relations with Macedonia and are interested in cultivating our relations. However, as far as efforts to move NATO’s infrastructure and the alliance in general closer to our borders are concerned, you know only too well what Moscow’s attitude to that process is. Nothing has changed in this respect," Peskov said when asked to comment on Macedonia possibly joining NATO once the Balkan state changes its name to Northern Macedonia.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier said Macedonia could not join the alliance until it settles the dispute with Greece over its name. According to Stoltenberg, Macedonia will be invited to NATO as soon as an agreement between Skopje and Athens is finalized.

The dispute between Macedonia and Greece over the name of the former Yugoslav republic, which coincides with the name of the northern Greek region, has dragged on for 25 years. Athens argued that its neighboring country’s name should be changed and opposed its accession to the European Union and NATO. On June 17, both nations’ Foreign Ministers Nikos Kotzias and Nikola Dimitrov signed an agreement stating that the former Yugoslav republic would change its name to the Republic of Northern Macedonia. However, Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov refused to sign it.

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