Zaev and Tsipras to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

One of the winners of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, Tunisian economist Wied Bushamaui, has said it will nominated Macedonia's prime minister and Greece's Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras for signing a key agreement between their countries.

“I see the Prespa Agreement, in which both sides and mediators have put so much energy, as an extremely important process that deserves to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Bushamaui to the media on Monday, adding that the agreement could serve as a model for solving problems worldwide.

The Tunisian Nobel Prize winner is currently in Skopje, where she will officially present her nomination at a special ceremony on Tuesday.

Macedonia and Greece signed a historic agreement in June on resolving a long dispute on Macedonia's name and having spent the first part of the year in difficult UN-mediated talks.

The deal was signed on the shores of Lake Prespa, which wet both countries, despite bitter opposition from the right in the two countries.

The agreement, which has yet to be implemented in Macedonia and then must be ratified in Greece, will end a decades-long dispute over the use of the term “Macedonia”.

Under the deal, Macedonia will change its name to the Republic of Northern Macedonia in order to satisfy the concerns of neighbouring Greece, which has a province with the same name and historians of which have long claimed Macedonia is an exclusive part of the Hellenic heritage.

The agreement will open the doors to Macedonia for NATO and EU membership. Greece has so far used its influence to veto its neighbour's accession.
Bushamawi, who is the first woman at the helm of the Tunisiaan Chamber of Commerce, was honoured with the Nobel Prize as part of the team consisting of “National Dialogue Quartet”, a coalition of local civil society organisations.

The award went to “the crucial Quartet contribution to building a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia” in the wake of the so-called 2011 Revolution Jasmin.