From: than...@athena.mit.edu (Thanos Tsekouras) Subject: Greek news from the Athens News Agency for June 14, 1993 Date: 14 Jun 1993 23:28:29 GMT Athens News Agency Bulletin. 14/06/1993 Athens, 14/693 (ANA) Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev begins today an official visit to Athens where he will hold talks with foreign minister Michalis Papaconstantinou while Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis is due to meet with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who arrived in Athens yesterday on a private visit. Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic is also scheduled to have talks with Mr Mitsotakis after his scheduled arrival in Athens tomorrow, a foreign ministry announcement said. Diplomatic sources said Mr Bulatovic's one-day visit, at the invitation of a Greek government, is in the context of Greece's efforts to determine the Montenegrin leadership's views on recent developments in the Yugoslav crisis. Meanwhile, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic arrived in Athens on a private visit at the invitation of Greece-Serbian friendship society. In statements after his arrival Mr Karadzic urged NATO and Moslem countries not to become involved in former Yugoslavia. "NATO and Moslem countries should not get involved in the Yugoslav crisis. This will only make things worse", he said. NATO foreign ministers said after a conference in Athens on Thursday that they would offer air power to defend UN troops in the six parts of Bosnia designated "safe areas" for Moslems, if they were attacked. Mr Karadzic said his forces would not fight UN troops except in self-defense. "We will not attack UN troops unless they hit us first. Then we will have to defend ourselves", he said. Aris Mousionis, president of the Greek-Serb Friendship Association, said Karadzic would attend a concert today sponsored by the Greek Church, the association of Attica municipalities (TEDKNA), and Greece's two largest labour unions - the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (GSEE) and the Civil Servants Supreme Administrative Council (ADEDY). Proceeds from the concert, to be held at the Peace and Friendship Stadium, will be used to purchase medical supplies for Bosnian Serbs. Mr Karadzic also held a meeting yesterday with main opposition PASOK leader Andreas Papandreou. Following the meeting, Mr Karadzic said Bosnian Serbs were ready to accept an unconditional peace plan which recognised equal rights for the Moslems and the Croats and provided for a tricommunal confederation. The Bosnian Serb leader described Greece as "a very important factor of stability in the Balkans". He also said that the "Balkan nations should belong to the Balkan peoples who are able to find solutions without the dangerous and unneccessary interference of foreign forces". Mr Papandreou described Mr Karadzic as a great "fighter for peace". Washington, 14/6/93 (Macedonian Press Agency) Greece's new ambassador to the United States, Loukas Tsilas, arrived in Washington Saturday to assume his new duties. Ambassador Tsilas is replacing Ambassador Christos Zacharakis who has returned to Athens to take up the post of secretary general of the foreign ministry. Athens, 14/6/93 (ANA) The government will continue the task the Greek people have assigned it and implement its programme. Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis told an enthousiastic crowd in Messolonghi Saturday. Mr Mitsotakis, accompanied by cabinet members, arrived in Messolonghi Saturday for an on-the-spot examination of the region's problems. Speaking to the crowd in the city's central square, the prime minister said a united and resolute New Democracy would continue to firmly apply its programme. "We are determined to extricate the country from the disaster created by PASOK's eight years of incompetent rule", he said, adding that the main opposition party was only able to present "negation". The government of New Democracy, he said, had upgraded the country on an international level with the result that Greece can now assume a leading role in the Balkans in an effort to restore peace and security. Mr Mitsotakis was accompanied by the ministers of agriculture Christos Koskinas, environment, town planning and public works Achileas Karamanlis, transport and communications Theodoros Anagnostopoulos and national economy and labous undersecretaries Aristidis Tsiplakos and Nikos Angelopoulos respectively. In talks later with journalists, Mr Mitsotakis [...?] infrastructure programme for western Greece, including project contained in the Delors II package of aid. He emphasised the government's housing policy as one that favoured working people with the aim of enabling the average Greek to acquire his own home through paying the state the monthly sum equal to the rent he would have paid. He said the Rio-Antirrio link would soon me completed, with the contractor due to be selected by the end of the year. The value of the project, he said, would total 120 billion dr., 50 per cent to be funded by the Delors II package and the other half through self-financing. Other related projects include: the central arterial linking Antirrio-Ioannina-Igoumenitsa; the Ahyrom Dam; and irrigation, the major problem in the region. The prime minister pledged that the government would solve the water problem, adding that the water supply projects for Athens would not deprive the prefecture of the water it needs. The recovery of the economy, he added, will also enable the goverment to pay more attention to farmers and, in 1993, special grants will be extended to them. After his address, Mr Mitsotakis chaired a New Democracy meeting of the prefecture, attended by ministers, deputies and local businessmen. --- The prime minister yesterday laid the foundation stone for the Larissa Regional Hospital. "The fact that I am here, just a year after construction began, shows the difference between our government and previous ones, governments which laid foundation stones and spoke of projects which were never completed. Deeds preced words", he said. The ultra-modern hospital will have 670 beds and 27 treatment units. Its contruction will cost a total of 32 billion dr. "(The) New Democracy (government) has completed the construction of the Sitia, Didimotyxon and Yannitsa hospitals and in the course of the current year, new hospitals in Xanthi, Levadia, Arta, Drama and Elefsina will be completed", he said. With the financial help of the Delors II package, Mr Mitsotakis said, by 1998, the country will have a health, welfare and social security infrastructure on a par with other developed countries. Athens, 14/6/93 (ANA) The Greek firm Econ Optics Mechanics has lodged a claim for libel and damages of ten million dollars against a Danish newspaper which alleged the Athens-based company was involved in breaking the UN-imposed embargo on Serbia. The Danish paper "Jydske Vestkysten" printed an article last week by journalist Teddy Gherke alleging that the Greek company, which manufactures military equipment and counts among its clients the Greek Armed Forces and some NATO units, sold supplies to the Serbian army and, by doing so, violated the UN-imposed embargo on Serbia. The newspaper report prompted a Danish Eurodeputy to raise the issue in parliament, leading to Danish Foreign Minister Niles Helveg Petersen demanding an investigation by the European Community. [Copied by Thanos Tsekouras]