WASHINGTON – After North Macedonia’s new Premier called his country Macedonia – at a NATO meeting in Washington, D.C. – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said big political guns will be wheeled out to deal with it.

He earlier warned North Macedonian officials in a new government there to abide by the terms of a 2018 agreement made by Greece’s former ruling Radical Left SYRIZA over the objections of most Greeks.

That let the then Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) change its name to North Macedonia – giving away the name of an abutting Greek province – and to get into NATO.

But Mitsotakis said remaining terms in the pact not ratified by the Greek Parliament will stay that way for now and that North Macedonian intransigence has blocked its hopes of joining the European Union.

He told Greek journalists at the NATO meeting: “The agreements must be honored … this is something I emphasized  … at the NATO plenary. I believe that all our allies understand this. We want North Macedonia to take steps towards European integration, but this requires respect for international law and the agreements the country has signed, obviously… I believe that, in one way or another, the leadership of Skopje will understand this,” Mitsotakis said, referring to the country’s capital.

“In any case, Greece will not reveal at this moment the (diplomatic) weapons it has at its disposal to respond to any potential insistence by the neighboring country’s leadership on this tactic,” he added.

Greece can veto North Macedonia’s EU hopes but not stop officials there from calling their country Macedonia and continuing to taunt and mock, even at the meeting of the defense alliance to which it gained admittance thanks to Greece.

North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski referred to it as Macedonia at the NATO meeting, after he said he would stick to the name North Macedonia in international relations while calling it Macedonia domestically, usurping the name of an abutting Greek province and identifying some of its products as Macedonia in a further violation.

He also said his government was “Macedonian,” in a further provocation which apparently has pushed Mitsotakis to get even tougher over the name agreement although the two countries enjoy trade and relations.