Macedonia and Greece vow to solve decades-old name dispute

[spmetla]

You have conflicts, wars and assassinations in all parts of the world all the time, that is not unique to Balkans. What is unique is that there is quite a few powerful countries and their overlapping interests. They are constantly try to increase their own influence at the expense of one another.

Case in point, the name dispute. It is pretty clear that US are pressuring Greece and Macedonia now to resolve the dispute so that Macedonia can enter NATO under current government. And I won't be surprised if the name Greece accepts now is the name they rejected in the past.

Greece will probably accept the name they've rejected, Macedonia will probably not try to change their flag back to the original one they wanted and then it'll likely join NATO.

Makes me wonder though if all the Balkans are part of NATO if that'll lead to the occasional war and war through proxies that have been allowed between NATO allies such as Greece and Turkey both over the Aegean islands and in Cyprus.

As a Serbian, is NATO still hated there? I know that it participated with NATO exercises but understandably keeps it's close ties with Russia. Would Serbia joining NATO be something you could imagine happening?
I imagine with the war in relatively recent memory that it still guides policy there. Has the stream of migrants through Serbia caused any problems?
I know on some more extreme forums I've seen Serbian posters essentially see the migrants as a fitting punishment for the 'West' after allowing the albanian/kosovars to separate from Serbia.

How about EU accession? I know that Serbia is a candidate for membership and that negotiations have been ongoing for years, is this a popular initative given the Brexit, Greek financial crisis, migrant crisis, and chill caused by the proxy war in Ukraine?

A fair point that. The propensity for trouble is NOT entirely home-grown.

Every one of the Balkan wars had Great Power meddling behind them. All the wars up to and including WW1 being over what was acceptable for the balance of power their via the Austro-Hungarian and Russian proxies.
Cold War had a technically neutral Yugoslavia, a PRC Chinese backed Albania, NATO supported Greece and Turkey, pro-soviet Warsaw pact Bulgaria and Romania and questioningly loyal to the Warsaw pact Hungary.