Greek foreign ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras described UN special envoy on the FYROM name issue Matthew Nimetz's upcoming visits to Athens and Skopje as "useful", adding that the UN secretary general's envoy will be able to ascertain in action to what degree the FYROM leadership is willing to contribute to a resolution of the name issue.

He also called on FYROM to stop its negative propaganda against Greece and the distortion of Greece's positions as attempted with the latest statements by Greece's chief negotiator to the FYROM name talks, Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, after his meeting with Nimetz in New York.

Delavekouras rejected as lies information channeled to the mass media in FYROM alleging intention on the Greek side to freeze the negotiations process, and stressed that Greece will not engage itself in a "rhetorical clash" with FYROM prime minister Nikola Gruevski.

The foreign ministry spokesman once again reiterated Greece's constructive stance at the negotiations which, he noted, have been ongoing for 17 years, and called on FYROM to change its stance so that a solution may be achieved on the name issue.

Delavekouras further said that Greece was awaiting an "explicit and unequivocal condemnation by the FYROM political leadership" of the unacceptable manifestations against Greece and its national symbols during the recent Vevcani Carnival in the neighbouring country, over which Greece on Wednesday lodged a demarche with the FYROM foreign ministry, as well as the taking of measures to avoid such phenomena in the future.

The head of Greece's Liaison Office in Skopje, Ambassador Alexandra Papadopoulou, lodged the demarche on Wednesday, protesting over the fact that the theme this year of the Carnival, which receives state subsidies from FYROM and was inaugurated by the FYROM culture minister, was the "Funeral of Greece", in which participants wore costumes depicting a map with irredentist content and the Sun of Vergina and burned a Greek flag.

The FYROM foreign ministry was told that not only was there no official condemnation of these manifestations by FYROM, but on the contrary the Carnival was described by the FYROM culture minister as a "diamond of 'Macedonian' tradition".

Papadopoulou called on the FYROM foreign ministry to "formally and unequivocally condemn these outrages" and to take all the necessary steps for the attribution of responsibilities and for avoidance of similar actions in the future "which do not help the improvement of the relations between the two peoples and are not consistent with the values of the European Union and the principles of good neighborhood".