Greece’s prime minister paid a historic visit to newly-renamed North Macedonia on Tuesday, cementing a name change deal that normalised relations between the neighbours after three decades but provoked anger among nationalists on both sides.

In what was dubbed “selfie diplomacy”, Zoran Zaev, the prime minister of the Balkan nation, took a photograph of himself with his arm around Alexis Tsipras, his Greek counterpart, outside the main government building in Skopje, the capital.

Mr Zaev hailed the visit – the first by a Greek prime minister to the Balkan state since it became independent from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 – as a “historic milestone”.

He described Mr Tsipras as “a close personal friend” and, as befitting diplomacy in the age of social media, posted their selfie on his Instagram and Twitter accounts.

“We showed Europe and the world that with bold decisions, anything is possible,” Mr Zaev said in reference to the name change accord.

In a referendum last year that was marked by low turnout, Macedonians voted to change the name of their country to assuage Greek concerns that the name “Macedonia” implied claims on the heritage and even territory of a northern Greek region of the same name.