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Comment by black_puppydog | Hacker News Reader

Greece didn't claim the country for itself, it claimed the name for it's own northern province.

Greece's logic in disapproving of the name Macedonia is that they fear that Macedonia (the republic) could some day claim the Greek province of Macedonia. By that logic, so should Luxembourg (the grand duchy) be able to claim the Belgian province of the same name.

There's a difference though, in that the province of Luxembourg was indeed a part of Luxembourg (the country) not even 200 years ago. So it would be a much more legitimate claim.

I don't think the rich Grand Duchy would be terribly interested in acquiring the empoverished Belgian province.

That is not an official stance.

Macedonia is part of the Greek identity. FYROM (still the official name until the agreement gets implemented in a few months) have been claiming this Greek identity by misappropriating history.

Think of it as a trademark violation.

A more appropriate parallel is the US state of California, which is named as it was once a part of a region named after Alta California, the name California first being applied to the then-thought-to-be-an-island peninsula in modern Mexico.

The country of Macedonia was part of a region generally called Macedonia for over a thousand years, as the initial named unit of Macedonia (which was in Greece) expanded to cover a wider area.

Bad logic because Greece's borders are internationally recognized. Nobody legalised Russia annexing the Crimea. You cannot just claim territory unless you're a superpower.

Besides I think the people in Greece-Macedonia are happy being Greek.

Greece didn't claim anything. Macedonia has been a Greek region for thousands of years. The so-called 'macdonia' state and the whole naming dispute emerged out of nowhere after WWII.

Macedonia is a broader geographic region which is shared by 4 states.

Second Balkan war? :)

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