LIVE: Myriads March to Protect Macedonia Name in Thessaloniki

At least 500 buses full of protesters from all around Greece are expected to arrive in Thessaloniki today. The massive protest is taking place at the center of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, on Sunday at 2 pm local time.

The event’s page states that the protest is not affiliated with any political parties and aims to send a clear message to FYROM to stop using the word Macedonia in their name.

The relatively new country that was shaped after the fall of Yugoslavia named itself ‘Republic of Macedonia’ and claims to be the continuation of the Ancient Macedonian Kingdom that flourished in Greece.

Greece and FYROM have been fighting over the Macedonia name for years but recently talks resumed again for a “composite solution that would satisfy both parties” according to UN envoy Mathew Nemetz.

A poster at the port of Thessaloniki reads: “If Alexander the Great was alive nobody would doubt Macedonia!”

However, 70 percent of Greek citizens disagree with the use of Macedonia at any new name for FYROM, according to the latest poll.

“It’s totally groundless historically and absurd to seek the exclusivity of Macedonia,” prime minister Alexis Tsipras told Sunday’s Ethnos newspaper about FYROM’s insistence to use “Macedonia” as its name.

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“But it is not unreasonable to have the term ‘Macedonia’ included in a compound name, with either a geographical or a chronological qualifier, for all uses, to make absolutely clear that nobody claims other people’s land or history.”

Watch a video from the protest::

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