Opposition presidential candidate Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova met with the Association of Macedonians from the Aegean and declared that it is a serious problem if Macedonia, as a country, is banned from raising the issue of the Macedonian minority living in Greece. Under the Prespa treaty, signed by Zaev and Tsipras, Macedonia is not allowed from interfering in Greek domestic affairs, and Greece considers even uttering the words “Macedonian minority in Greece” as interference.

Unfortunately, our country did not muster the strength to speak up about the Aegean Odyssey, the fate of the Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia, many of whom are strewn across the world. It is up to me to listen to your issues. I have tried to do so in the past. As a constitutional law professor I know that the issue should be seen through the prism of the Framework convention for the protection of minorities, the Convention for regional minority languages, which Greece has not ratified. If they insist that the minority issues are internal issues of a country and that every mention of the Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia is interference in domestic affairs, than we have a serious problem, Siljanovska said.

Most Greek politicians vehemently insists that there are no Macedonians living in Greece, and the furthest they can go is to declare that there is a group of Slavic speaking Greeks in northern Greece. The region, which Greece only occupied in 1912 from the Ottoman Empire, and which was made majority Greek through the expulsion of ethnic Macedonians and a population transfer with Turkey, is also referred to as Aegean Macedonia or Macedonia by the White Sea.