Greek Parliament Members Dora Bakoyannis, Ioannis Kefalogiannis, and Georgios Koumoutsakos, have addressed an official letter to the Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias regarding the Greek Government's positions on the name issue with Macedonia.
The MPs believe there are several 'contradictory positions of some Government officials regarding the critical name issue', thus they demanded Kotzias to elaborate the official viewpoint of the Foreign Ministry, 'taking into consideration the positions of several Government officials are different from the national line the political leaders confirmed in April 1993, and has remained constant for all governments that followed'.
In the letter to Kotzias they reminded that the Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, in the last parliamentary session 'publicly said that the national line, established by political leaders in April 1993, has not changed'.
The reason for the question, MIA correspondent in Athens reports, is the statement from Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, that he supports a 1993 position in which Greece has refused to accept the use of the word "Macedonia" in any name for the Republic of Macedonia.
Kammenos is from the nationalist Independent Greeks party, which rules as a junior partner in coalition with the far left SYRIZA party. Kotzias supports a later Greek position, according to which Macedonia can use the word, but needs to add a geographic qualifier to its name. The three members of Parliament also raise the issue of occasional statements by SYRIZA officials that they are willing to allow the Republic of Macedonia to keep its constitutional name.
Talks between Macedonia and Greece have stalled, with no meetings between the mediators for a while now, and the focus moved toward a set of confidence building measures that are supposed to improve relations in other areas without touching the name issue.