ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Well over 100,000 protesters from across Greece converged Sunday on Athens’ main square to protest a potential Greek compromise in a dispute with neighboring Macedonia over the former Yugoslav republic’s official name. Chanting “Hands off Macedonia!” and “Macedonia belongs to Greece!” tens of thousands of protesters converged on Syntagma Square in front of parliament, many waving flags bearing the Star of Vergina, the emblem of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia. Organizers estimated that 1.5 million people gathered at Syntagma Square outside parliament, but police estimates quickly deflated that number to just 140,000. Organizers claimed some 1.5 million people from across Greece and the Greek diaspora turned out to express their opposition to attempts by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' government to broker a deal. The dispute began after the small Balkan country, for decades a part of the former Yugoslavia, gained independence in 1991 and wanted to call itself Macedonia. Due to Greece's objections, Macedonia was admitted to the United Nations with the provisional name "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in 1993, which remains its official title in international organisations. Although people from the country of Macedonia speak a Slavic language, the name of both places comes from the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, which gave rise to the famous conqueror and icon of Greek history, Alexander the Great. Greece, a member of both NATO and the European Union, has also repeatedly blocked any NATO or EU ambition for its neighbor, both significant goals for consecutive Skopje governments. "The government is trying to give a patriotic solution to a problem that has troubled the country, its international relations and its diplomacy for over 25 years," government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said Sunday. Outside the capital, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Thessaloniki on January 21 in the first major protest over the name dispute, with police saying 90,000 people attended but organizers putting the number at 400,000.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrate in Athens against the willingness manifested by the Cabinet of Greece to make concessions in the long-standing dispute with the Republic of Macedonia.