Today in Athens, the leader of the DUI party Ali Ahmeti, will meet with Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias. The meeting is scheduled to begin at noon local time in the Greek Foreign Ministry, which was announced in a statement just an hour before the meeting.
At the meeting the Macedonian Ambassador to Athens will not be present, nor will any other representatives from the Embassy. The reason for the absence of Macedonian diplomats at the meeting in Athens is due to the fact that neither Ahmeti, Besimi or Xhaferi did not inform the Macedonian Foreign Ministry or the Liaison Office of Macedonia in Athens of their meeting or their visit to Athens.
According to the statement, first there will be a face to face meeting with the Greek Foreign Minister, and then a meeting between the Greek and Macedonian delegation.
As announced by the DUI leader, Kotzias and Ahmeti will exchange views and ideas on good neighbourly relations, outstanding issues between the two countries and the Euro-Atlantic integration of Macedonia. Ahmeti will be accompanied by MP Artan Grubi, Deputy Prime Minister for the implementation of the Framework Agreement Musa Xhaferi, and Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs, Fatmir Besimi.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reacted after DUI’s statement, and said that they had not given their support to officials of DUI for their visit to Athens. Their visit to Athens was of their own initiative, as well as a party visit and not in the capacity as Government Officials and was “just like the party visit by Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki”.
“The MFA was not informed regarding the visit, therefore can not state the reasons for the trip”, was the reaction by the MFA today.
Their reaction came quickly after DUI’s statement was released, where it stated that this was not the first meeting between the DUI leader Ali Ahmeti and the Greek Foreign Minister.
Greek sources have told “Meta”, that Ahmeti’s visit is of his own accord and initiative, and are part of his efforts to maintain contacts with the International Community.
Our sources say that this meeting is not a message from the Greek Government nor was it their initiative and according to them all the key issue were already discussed with Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki.
