North Macedonia Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski announced Saturday that Skopje had reached a compromise with Bulgaria in a long-running dispute.
This would also allow them to start European Union membership talks.
"Finally, after 17 years, we are starting the process of accession negotiations with the European Union," Kovacevski told reporters after a meeting of the government.
EU member Bulgaria had until recently blocked any progress for such talks because of the dispute between the countries over linguistic and historical issues.
But last month, Bulgarian deputies approved lifting that veto in exchange for EU guarantees that North Macedonia meets certain demands on the issues in question.
