A Macedonian nation never existed in the period of classical antiquity, as it was the case with the nations of Athenians and Spartans, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says in an interview for tomorrow's edition of 'Ethnos' newspaper, MIA reports from Athens.
'Ancient Macedonia was a great power of the ancient Greek world which, especially in the period of the Alexander the Great's reign expanded far beyond today's geographic region - Macedonia, the Greek PM says.
In addition to Greeks and Slavs, Bulgarians, Serbs, Jews and Ottoman Turks had been settling the region since the 7th century, he says.
'Today this broad geographic region belongs to three states. Hence it is counter to the history and absurd for some to seek exclusivity for Macedonia, also with regards to ethnic identification,' Tsipras says.
However, he says, 'it is not unreasonable for the term Macedonia to be included in a compound name with geographic or time identifier for overall use, so that it will be clear that nobody lay claims for territories or the history of other nations.'