Greek police used tear gas against demonstrators near the walls of parliament in Athens

More than 100 thousand people gathered on Sunday in the center of Athens on Sintagma Square near the walls of the Greek parliament for a mass rally against an agreement with Skopier. This was announced from the scene of the large screen, the organizers of the manifestation announced, TASS reports. At the same time, the organizers expected to participate up to 600 thousand people.

Thousands of demonstrators with Greek flags in their hands perform a Greek anthem in their hands and sing patriotic songs, chanting slogans against a “treacherous agreement with Skopje” and demand that Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras refuse to ratify the document according to which the Republic of Macedonia will be called “the Republic of North Macedonia”.

Representatives of political and public organizations from all regions of Greece, representatives of the monastic fraternity from the Holy Mount Athos, a number of metropolitans of the Elladsky Orthodox Church, which are categorically against the agreement on the renaming of the former Yugoslav republic, participate in the rallies. Representatives of local governments from the Greek region of Macedonia, as well as representatives of the Greek diaspora of the United States, Canada and other countries, also entered the action.

The Macedonia Greek Committee, which organized many thousands of manifestation, urged all the Greeks to come to the rally in Athens in order to prevent the "betrayal of Macedonia."

Turning to the Greek parliamentarians who intend to vote for the ratification of the agreement with Skopier, the Committee said: "Hands off Macedonia! We will wait until the last moment that they will behave like real Greeks. We are countless, we are one, we are the Greeks, we are the hosts of this country, we will make a final decision."

A group of demonstrators rose along the marble staircase from the monument to an unknown soldier to the building of the parliament, the passage to which is guarded by special sensation police detachments in special equipment. Banks with paint, sticks, stones, smoke bombs flew into the police. In response, the special forces used tear gas.

A suffocating cloud spread to the square, which is why the participants in the mass rally had to move a dozen meters from the walls of the parliament. Demonstrators from among anarchists with gas masks and masks on their faces began to break a metal fence to penetrate the territory of the parliament. The police again used tear gas.

According to the Elefteros Tipos Greek newspaper Public Opinion, conducted by the sociological company MRB, about 70% of the Greeks opposed the agreement concluded by Athens with Skopje on the renaming of the former Yugoslav Republic to North Macedonia. Even the majority of voters of the ruling party coalition of radical left -wing forces (Siriza) by Alexis Tsipras are configured against an agreement with Skopier. According to the survey, only one of four (24%) of such voters supports it, and against 50% of the Siriz supporters surveyed.

Recall, on June 17, 2018, the Foreign Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Macedonia and Greece on the shores of Lake Pesp, along which the border between the two countries passes, signed an agreement on the new official name of the former Yugoslav Republic.

On January 11, 2019, the Macedonia parliament approved the introduction of the appropriate amendments to the Constitution. On January 19, an agreement with Skopye on the renaming of the Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of North Macedonia was receding on ratification to the Greece Parliament, on Monday the bill will consider the standing Committee of National Defense and Foreign Affairs of the Greek Parliament.

According to the chairman of the parliament Nicos Vutsas, "by the end of the next week, the Prescan Agreement will be ratified." The Greece Government expects that he will be able to enlist in votes from 151 to 155 deputies in order to ratify the Pence Agreement in the 300-seater single-fascinated parliament of the country.