(dpa) - With just days to go before a crucial NATO summit, Greece and Macedonia remained far apart on the dispute concerning the latter's name on Saturday.
"We have done everything we could. I think now is a real chance for our Greek neighbours and friends to show whether they are looking for a compromise or whether they are looking for a pretext to block" Macedonia's entry to NATO, Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki said.
"We are running out of time," he said.
But that sense of urgency was not shared by Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, who also attended the informal meeting of EU and Balkan foreign ministers in Slovenia.
"There are no time limits and there are no deadlines in this question. This is a question of regional stability," she said.
Greece has been in dispute with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - to use its official title - over the issue of the latter's name ever since it broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Skopje insists that the country be called "Macedonia," but Athens argues that much of the geographical territory known as Macedonia lies in Greece, and that Skopje's position therefore implies a territorial claim against it.
"I think Greece has very serious reasoning... Allied relations have to be built on really solid ground. We have to take the problems of the past out of it," Bakoyannis said.
As a result of the row, Greece threatens to block any invitation for Macedonia to join NATO - an invitation which NATO leaders had hoped to extend at a summit beginning on Wednesday in Bucharest.
That stance has aroused consternation in both Macedonia and NATO, where some member states fear that a rejection of Skopje could jeopardize stability in the Balkans.
"NATO is not about names, NATO is about security. We should not infuriate the people who are really doing a serious job" in preparing to join the alliance, Milososki said.
Talks are currently under way under UN auspices, with a compromise name proposed on Tuesday. Greece rejected that name on Thursday, saying that it was "far from the goals sought by Greece."