The judgment of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which was in Macedonia’s favor, may only be a catalyst of the name issue talks, because the country has to resolve the name issue if it wishes to join NATO, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs told Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in Skopje Wednesday.

Aside from this message, which Reeker said was reiterated many times, he expressed commiseration for the passing of Macedonia’s first president Kiro Gligorov, whom he referred to as true statesman and called on the government to be courageous in taking tough decisions as Gligorov was.

“I hope the country’s leadership will demonstrate the same amount of courage as President Gligorov did in handling the numerous challenges of the country, which we face together in the region and the complex world we live in. More specifically we talked about the judgment of the International Court of Justice of last December, Macedonia’s progress in the Euro-Atlantic integration, the importance of the freedom of media and the independence of the judiciary,” Reeker said.