Former prime ministers of Greece Alexis Tsipras and North Macedonia Zoran Zaev awarded the first 'Prespa Peace Award' to Matthew Nimetz, former UN Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, during a conference in Athens on Monday.

Nimetz, who served as UN Special Representative from 1994 to 2019, was awarded the recognition during the first International Conference for Peace and Sustainable Growth, held at the Athens Conservatory Monday and Tuesday by the Alexis Tsipras Institute and the Zoran Zaev Institute.

At a special ceremony exactly six years after the signing of the Prespa Agreement (2018), Nimetz appealed to all sides to "follow and respect the Prespa Agreement and work hard for its implementation," adding that if there are points in the Agreement that need work, then they need to "sit down together and resolve them."

The American diplomat also thanked the former and current UN Secretaries General who supported the Agreement, and particularly the peoples of the two countries. He noted that his greatest contribution was that he persisted and worked on the issue for 20 years, with 18 of these being listening to the two sides and perhaps contributing something in the last two years. 

Nimetz underlined that the Prespa Agreement is "very important for the two countries and the region, the entire region, and beyond the region." All important agreements, he said, tend to involve compromises, and he cited as examples the US Constitution, the Versailles Treaty, and the UN Charter. "We do not live in the Metaverse," where things are great, he said, but in the end you have to take off the glasses of virtual reality and return to the real world, which entails real dangers.

Prior to the awarding, a videotaped message by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was screened, while the ceremony was also attended by SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Stefanos Kasselakis.