Antenna: News in English, 99-03-10

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From: Antenna <www.antenna.gr/> - email: webmaster@antenna.gr

CONTENTS

[01] Turkey

[02] Pangalos

[03] Papandreou

[04] Karamanlis

[01] Turkey

While there is nothing unusual about the Turkish moves, they come in tandem with a barrage of verbal assaults against Athens from Ankara.

And Tuesday's military moves appear to be preying on Greek military leaders' minds.

Turkish planes were sent from bases deep in Anatolia to the bases of Balkisir, Akisar, And Idinio near the Aegean coast.

Greek and Turkish fighter formations engaged near the island of Limnos Tuesday afternoon.

Greek pilots were on a three minute alert - meaning they had to be prepared to be airborne with 180 seconds' warning.

Greece held naval exercises of its own in the Aegean, just south of the area where Turkey was conducting its manoeuvres.

[02] Pangalos

Appearing on Antenna's 'Good Morning Greece', Theodoros Pangalos - who resigned as foreign minister after Ocalan's abduction in Kenya - defended his handling of the affair.

Casting himself in the role of trouble-shooter, Pangalos said it was only one of several times that he was called on to deal with messes created by other people.

Theodoros Pangalos told Antenna that the Ocalan affair - which cost him his post as foreign minister - was the third crisis of other people's making he was handed to deal with.

And he explained:

The foreign ministry was never asked if the people who raised the Greek flag on Imia should have done it. The Imia crisis would end with Greek and Turkish warships staring each other down in the Aegean.

The foreign minister didn't find out that Cyprus had ordered Russian S-300 missiles until he read it in the press four months later; Last December, Cyprus decided not to take receipt of the missiles, and they're being sent to Greece instead.

Finally, we come to Ocalan. Pangalos said the people who smuggled the Kurdish leader into Athens on January 29th didn't ask his permission. He didn't even find out Ocalan was in Greece until 24 hours after he'd landed.

Reflecting on the minefields dropped in his lap, Pangalos said he's a political firefighter, and it's a role that suits him.

The next fire he'll see could well be at the 5th Pasok congress this weekend.

There, the government's in-house critics will vent their dissatisfaction - or worse - over the handling of the Ocalan affair.

Pangalos has already felt the heat of their wrath since the Ocalan debacle.

"What bugs me", he explains, "is that some party members didn't seem to be satisfied by my resignation. It's as if they were saying, 'OK, we've taken care of him, now the road is open'. Open, that means to launching an attack on the government as a whole. Pangalos says the problem with that tactic is that it's no way to guarantee good leadership, either of Pasok or of the nation.

Pangalos rejects the speculation that the Greek government was in cahoots with Washington over the handling of Ocalan, that they'd plotted his eventual arrest in Kenya before he even departed from Greece.

"That's an irrational theory", says Pangalos. "The Americans never told us to send him to Kenya. If they'd known he was in Greece, they would've asked us to take him into custody and hand him over to the Turks forthwith".

Pangalos also takes issue with former interior minister Alekos Papadopoulos, who says his recommendation was to arrest Ocalan and publicise his presence in Greece.

Not a good idea, according Pangalos, who says he backed every move that was eventually made in the affair. "If we'd arrested Ocalan", he reasons, "he would've spent three months in prison - then what whould we have done?"

Pangalos may no longer be exercising his acerbic wit at the foreign ministry, but it's just as biting as ever.

Asked to comment on New Democracy leader Kostas Karamanlis's repeated calls for the prime minister to resign over the handling of the Ocalan affair, Pangalos quipped: "Mr Karamanlis hasn't worked in his life. He's never run a newsstand, and he wants to run the country".

In non-partisan fairness, Pangalos acknowledged that there are people with a similar lack of credentials exercising criticism of the government from within Pasok too.

[03] Papandreou

Greece, like other Balkan countries, fears an escalation of violence in the predominantly Albanian populated Serb province, could lead to the conflict spilling over Yugoslav borders into neighboring countries.

Greek government spokesman Dimitris Reppas called the timing of foreign minister Giorgos Papandreou's Balkan tour crucial, adding that, "if the Kosovo crisis develops, it could have negative consequences in the region, Greece included. We must have an active presence and not be simple observers.''

Papandreou was scheduld to make stops in Tirana, Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FYROM Wednesday.

He is scheduled to visit the capitals of Romania and Bulgaria Thursday, then later on in the day move on to Belgrade, Yugoslavia where he will meet with Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

Greece's northern port of Thessaloniki is serving as a supply point for the 30,000 NATO peacekeepers waiting to police any peace deal between Albanian rebels and the Yugoslav forces of Kosovo.

British, German and French troops complete with artillery have landed in Thessaloniki and are making their way into FYROM which borders Kossovo.

More than 2,000 U.S. marines currently participating in a joint Greek- American military exercise in northern Greece, could be rerouted to Kosovo if the warring sides sign a peace deal on March 15.

[04] Karamanlis

Kostas Karamanlis met with the White House chief of staff, John Pondesta.

Karamanlis and the Greek-American Pondesta, one of the closest of Clinton aides, talked about the prospects for closer economic ties between the US and Greece.

Karamanlis said that to attract American investors Greece needs to eliminate bureaucracy, privatise state companies, and overhaul its tax system.

The New Democracy leader also addressed members of the Greek-American community. In a speech to AHEPA members, he called for Greeks everywhere to unite behind a single foreign policy in the interest of Greece.

There are too few Greeks in the world for them to be divided amongst themselves, he added.

(c) Antenna 1999

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