Greek minister heads to Macedonia to discuss name dispute

SKOPJE, Macedonia – Greece's foreign minister is going to Macedonia for talks on how to resolve a decades-long dispute over the former Yugoslav republic's name.

Nikos Kotzias will fly to the Macedonian capital Thursday evening, after Macedonian authorities renamed the country's airport from "Alexander the Great" to "Skopje International Airport" in a goodwill gesture to Greece.

He will be the first Greek official to arrive in Skopje by plane in 12 years. Direct flights between the two capitals stopped when Skopje named the airport after the ancient warrior king, which Greece objected to as a usurpation of its ancient history.

The two countries have been at odds for a quarter-century over the name "Macedonia", which Greece claims harbors territorial aspirations on its own northern province of the same name.