Former Greek Prime Minister and leader of the left-wing Syriza party, Alexis Tsipras, was honored on Tuesday with the Nikos Nikiforidis Peace Prize for his role in the 2018 Prespa Agreement, which resolved a decades-long dispute between Greece and its northern neighbor, formerly known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
The landmark agreement, which was signed by the foreign ministers of Greece and FYROM, Nikos Kotzias and Nikola Dimitrov, led to the country officially being renamed the Republic of North Macedonia.
The deal, achieved under the leadership of Tsipras and his counterpart Zoran Zaev, was hailed as a significant diplomatic breakthrough, easing tensions and paving the way for North Macedonia’s accession to NATO and the European Union.
The Nikos Nikiforidis Peace Prize, awarded annually since 2018 by the Observatory of International Organizations & Globalization, commemorates the legacy of the Greek peace activist Nikos Nikiforidis.
The award recognizes individuals or initiatives that have made a substantial contribution to the promotion of peace and international cooperation.
The Prespa Agreement remains one of the most significant foreign policy achievements of Tsipras’s administration, transforming relations between the two countries and fostering stability in the wider Balkan region.