Greece Will Allow the Macedonian Political
Refugees to Visit from August 10 to October 30

MILS NEWS - Skopje, Macedonia

July 03, 2003

Political refugees from the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) will be able to enter Greece during the period from August 10, 2003 to October 30, 2003 and they will be able to stay up to 20 days in order to visit their birthplaces.

This, as "Dnevnik" writes was announced yesterday by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The decision means that all Macedonian political refugees who until now were banned from visiting their birthplaces will be able to enter Greece. They will have to get Greek visas, which will be issued in ten days.

This decision is welcomed by the organizations of Macedonian political refugees who evaluated that Greek authorities are fulfilling their promise that the problem with the political refugees will be solved. Representatives of these organizations stated that they want to receive more information about the way in which political refugees will be able to enter Greece.

According to them, the planned gathering of refugees in Lerin, scheduled for July 15, will most probably will be postponed for one month, until after August 10.

The Macedonian Ambassador in Athens, Blagoj Handziski, welcomed the decision by Greek authorities. According to him, this is a step forward with which one injustice is acknowledged and the problem of the political refugees starts to be solved. Handziski expects that while initially the refugees will be allowed to visit their birthplaces, afterwards problems with their citizenship, properties, etc., would be solved.