Claims on alleged Macedonia-Greece name agreement to be made public after elections are pure, rather harmful speculations, President Gjorge Ivanov told reporters on Tuesday. He called the political parties and the public to refrain from spreading such information.

"Such speculations are harmful for our position in the ongoing UN-led negotiating process on settling the (name) dispute. The process needs to be finalized where it started, and the political parties and the public should avoid spreading speculations which could harm our position," Ivanov said during his visit to the Jegunovce municipality.

Asked ih he would expect wider consensus after the erlection, the President reaffirmed the existence of an informal national consensus in the country on the name row with Greece.

"No matter which party is in power, everybody should know what our interest is, namely that the negotiations must not tackle the identity issues but only the difference over the name as stipulated by the UN Resolution," Ivanov said. He shared his beliefs that follwing the elections the dynamics of the process will accelerate and that the mediator Nimetz will continue the meetings with the Macedonian and the Greek representative.

Macedonian President expects to hear Russian position on the name row at tomorrow’s meeting with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.

“Russia is a member of the Security Council, has acknowledged our constitutional name, using it in all bilateral relations. That has never been an issue for them,” said Dr. Ivanov, highlighting that the announced visit of Minister Lavrov correlates to the observance of 150th anniversary since the opening of the first Russian Consulate in Macedonia.

Regarding well known retorics of political parties in view of elections and the heated air, Ivanov called on all political parties to practice political decency during the upcoming election process, highlighting that all different sides would have to again meet and discuss after the elections are completed.

“After 20 years of democracy is is about time we all learn the political game, use words and phrases that are now offensive, and avoid contaminating the public sphere with retorics aimed only at attracting people’s confidence,” said President Ivanov.