NATO allies have signed a protocol that could see the tiny Balkan country become the military alliance's 30th member. Macedonia's NATO membership had been blocked for a decade by neighboring Greece over a name dispute.
Macedonia came a step closer to joining NATO on Wednesday after the two sides signed accession papers in Brussels.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov led the "accession protocol" signing ceremony at the NATO headquarters in the Belgian capital.
"This is a historic occasion," Stoltenberg told NATO country envoys before they signed the document. "We have waited for you to join our family for a long time."
Dimitrov said the ceremony "is the result of the work of many generations," and he thanked the Greek and Macedonian prime ministers for overcoming the name dispute.
"This was not inevitable, this was not even very likely to happen," he said, lauding it as proof that "the impossible is actually doable and possible."
EU membership next?
The accession protocol must be ratified by all 29 NATO members. Greece is set to become the first to do so this week.
The settlement of the name dispute between Athens and Skopje also paves the way for Macedonia to join the European Union.
The EU's enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn congratulated Macedonia after the NATO ceremony, saying the move was "a contribution to peace and stability" in the Western Balkans.
Earlier this week, Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said he hoped his country could launch membership talks with the EU in June.
The naming dispute between Greece and North Macedonia has roots that go back to antiquity. The country's borders have moved about a bit over time, while ethnic changes have also made a mark.
Image: Robert Atanasovski/AFP/Getty Images
Present day
As well as Greece and North Macedonia, the geographic region of Macedonia extends into Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia as well as small areas of Kosovo (which you can't quite see here).
Greek origins
The ancient kingdom of Macedonia – or Macedon – was a relatively small part of the present day Greek province of Macedonia. It first expanded under King Perdiccas I, then widened to take in other areas.
A Roman province
After the fall of the Greek Empire, the Romans – who admired Alexander – used the old name Macedonia for the province encompassing much of northern Greece and the area north of it – including much of the modern-day North Macedonia.
A shift to the east
With the breakup of the Roman Empire into East and West, this region was overrun by the Slavic invasions. An entirely new province far to the east, including part of Thrace in modern-day Turkey, was named Macedonia by the Byzantine Empress Irene of Athens.
Ottoman roots for current concept
The geographic region known as Macedonia today roughly equates to the part of the Ottoman Empire known as Ottoman Vardar Macedonia. It included Greek and Slavic areas and was split into three administrative units, but the concept of Macedonia persisted. This remained the case for centuries and so this concept – of what Macedonia is – has stuck.
Let's put that all together...
...and there's certainly a fair bit of overlap — and room for confusion.
Small matter of empire
Of course, Macedonia's King Alexander the Great's realm stretched all the way to India — but it would be a bit of a stretch to call that Macedonia
As if it weren’t complicated enough, there’s another meaning of the word Macedonia. In Greece and many Latin-language-speaking countries, it’s also a fruit salad. The name is thought to have ben popularized at the end of the 18th century, referring to either the ethnic diversity of Alexander's vast empire or the ethnic mix of Ottoman Macedonia.
