Nikos Kotzias on September 29 stated that on November 4, a mixed Greek-Macedonian commission will review the Macedonian history textbooks and "will take out all the examples that, according to Athens, are irredentism."
Dimitrov said in a statement yesterday that with Kotzias discussed this could be done to improve the relations between Macedonia and Greece.
"I want to say that Macedonia under Gruevski was complex, frightened and usually any conversation is interpreted negatively. That is why the thing was that we would discuss the revision of textbooks, and only the Macedonian ones. Any two European countries when they are at the stage of reconciliation and opening up the plight and prejudice, one should always see the story of Macedonia, what is the story in Macedonia for Greece, and what was discussed in New York was for a meeting of experts and historians, "- Dimitrov.
On the website of the Greek Foreign Ministry, the transcript from the Kotzias interview for the morning program of the Greek national television is still in the place where he says he expects no irredentism in the Macedonian textbooks until the beginning of February.
"For example, we agreed in New York with our very interesting Foreign Minister of our neighbor, Nikola Dimitrov, to have a joint commission starting on November 4th. It will work for 4 months - I hope will work and complete the task - combing school books to eradicate irredentism and the maps that exist in textbooks. This is an important step that we have already taken. We are negotiating for many other steps, "the head of Greek diplomacy said in a statement to the ERT.
The commission should be part of the confidence-building measures between the two countries.
Officially on the Macedonian side there is no confirmation that on November 4, a mixed Greek-Macedonian commission on history should start to work, that is, to change textbooks according to the requirements of the southern neighbor.
The Greek Foreign Ministry has no announcement that the committee will discuss Greek irredentism.
Paul Voskopoulos Filipov from Rainbow, the party of Macedonians in Greece, reminds us of a project several years ago when foreign historians came to some kind of result.
"God forbid after schools in Macedonia, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia ... to teach children the same history books. Such four books have already been made. But these textbooks in Greece are crawling through some school basements. In all translations of these textbooks in the languages of the Balkan countries, and in the English translation, he writes about the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language. But this is not found in the Greek translation of the "Slavo-Macedonian nation and Slavo-Macedonian language". Therefore, Greece should first allow these books to be shared by their schools, of course by repairing the "typo" for the term Macedonian. I'm sure that the first people know both of the Greek and Macedonian MFA, "says Pavlopoulos.
SOURCE: MACTEL
