Athens News Agency: News in English (PM), 98-03-27

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr>

NEWS IN ENGLISH

Athens, Greece, 27/03/1998 (ANA)

MAIN HEADLINES

• Athens proposes unconditional talks between Belgrade, Kosovo
• Albanian president urges regional cooperation
• Quake recorded off Greek islands
• Showroom fire causes millions in damage
• Police search for snow missing
• Jobless rate remains static
• Still problems with power supply
• Weather
• Foreign Exchange

NEWS IN DETAIL

Greece today proposed the immediate holding of a dialogue without preconditions between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and representatives of the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo elected after elections in the province on Sunday.

Foreign Undersecretary Yiannos Kranidiotis made the proposal at a meeting in Athens on the crisis in the strife-torn Yugoslav province.

Krandiotis referred to Ibrahim Rugova, head of the Democratic League of Kosovo and president of the self-styled independent republic of Kosovo, as a "reliable" negotiating partner.

Rugova ran for and won re-election unopposed in Sunday's elections organised by the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo which were viewed as illegal by Federal Yugoslavia.

Kranidiotis underlined the need to speed up implementation of an education deal signed on Monday between Belgrade and Kosovo Albanian leaders.

He also urged the taking of confidence-building measures, the exercise of "preventive" but "positive and creative" diplomacy by the European Union and the Western European Union (WEU).

Kranidiotis added however that Yugoslavia should be "rewarded" if it conformed with the framework for a solution proposed by the six-nation Contact Group.

Kranidiotis said the Balkans had left behind the "anachronistic models of the past," adding that "the road for the Balkan states is our accession to European institutions and the European family".

He said the meeting in Crete last November had shown that inter-Balkan cooperation was a forum at which the problems of the region could be resolved "but in order for this to happen, there must be a continuation".

Referring to the Kosovo problem, Kranidiotis reiterated Greece's position that any solution must not entail a change of existing borders, must be within the framework of the Federal Yugoslav Republic and accompanied by respect for minority rights.

In addition, he said, Kosovo should be granted a status of broad autonomy.

Clarifying his proposal for immediate dialogue without preconditions, Kranidiotis said it should be aimed at securing the greatest possible autonomy for the province.

He warned that a further exacerbation of the crisis would have repercussions throughout the Balkans, particularly in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Albania "as well as enormous consequences for Greece".

Kranidiotis praised the initiatives of Bulgaria, and of Greece, on the Kosovo problem, which were taken into account by the Contact Group.

Commenting on the sanctions facing Yugoslavia if it fails to take measures to defuse the tension in Kosovo, Kranidiotis stressed that "sanctions, as a policy, are only effective if there is at the same time some reward for the country it conforms with what is being asked of it. Otherwise it may lead to a fruitless and unsuccessful process".

"In the case of Yugoslavia," he added, "it must be guaranteed that conformity by Belgrade will result in its being incorporated in European institutions," Kranidiotis said, welcoming Yugoslavia's application to join the Council of Europe.

Yugoslavia's accession to the Council of Europe would entail the signing by Belgrade of the relevant convention on human rights.

Speaking meanwhile on the Kosovo problem in Thessloniki today at a special ceremony in his honour, Albanian President Rexhep Meidani said "as in the case of Bosnia, valuable time has been lost".

Meidani urged the speeding up of procedures to find a "democratic solution" based on international treaties and respect for human rights.

"The attitudes of the past, which sought to control people by means of repression and force, have no future," he added.

Albanian president urges regional cooperation

The need for better cooperation between the Balkan states as means of fighting organised crime was stressed by Albanian President Rexhep Meidani in Thessaloniki today.

The Albanian president, speaking at a ceremony held in his honour at Thessaloniki University, expressed his dismay at what he called the "collective" punishment of Albanian nationals living in Greece and urged the media to work harder in presenting the truth on the recent escalation of crime in Greece.

"The police in in Greece, Albania and other Balkan states can continue our joint efforts to establish better relations and to fight organised crime, smuggling and other illegal activities," he said, "otherwise the problem of crime in the Balkans will become much worse."

As of 1987, Mejdani has been head of Tirana University's school of physics. He is a founding member of the Balkan Physics Union and has received many awards.

Mejdani arrived in Thessaloniki yesterday and is to meet this afternoon with members of the Industrialists' Association of Northern Greece. He is to be guest of honour at a dinner given this evening by Minister for Macedonia and Thrace Philippos Petsalnikos.

Quake recorded off Greek islands

An earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale was recorded at 14.18 this afternoon by the Athens seismological centre.

The epicentre was situated 260 kilometres northeast of Athens, in the sea bed between the islands of Lesbos and Chios.

No damage has been reported.

Showroom fire causes millions in damage

A fire today caused millions of drachmas worth of damage to a furniture showroom in the Athens suburb of Aghia Paraskevi, but according to initial reports no one was injured.

The blaze broke out in the showroom on the first floor of an apartment block on busy Mesogeion Avenue.

Due to the immediate intervention of the fire brigade, the blaze did not spread to other floors.

It was eventually extinguished by 15 firemen and 4 fire engines.

The fire service is conducting an investigation into the cause of the blaze.

Police search for snow missing

The president of the village of Kaloskopi, Fokida and one Albanian are still missing since yesterday when they were last seen escorting relatives of the community leader to the railway station at Bralos in the mountains of central Greece.

According to the police, Ioannis Apostolopoulos and the unidentified Albanian were last seen at 07:30 am yesterday in Gravia.

A search was organised at noon yesterday and late in the evening a Public Power Corporation (DEH) off-road vehicle and a platoon of soldiers had reached the 51st kilometre of the Lamia-Amfissa highway, where snow 1.5 metres high prevented them from going further.

The search was resumed early this morning.

Meanwhile, a group of 28 day-trippers is stranded near Eptalofos, close to the Parnassos ski centre in Fokida.

According to initial reports, the group set out from the village of Elatos behind a snow-plough yesterday afternoon, heading for Eptalofos. It appears that the snow-plough broke down and the trippers became stranded in their vehicles surrounded by snow 2.5 metres high.

Shortly after midnight, efforts were made to locate the day-trippers but was abandoned due to heavy snowfall. The search resumed this morning.

Jobless rate remains static

Unemployment last year remained at 10.3 percent, the same level as 1996, according to figures released today by the national statistics service ESYE.

ESYE said a sampling survey showed that of a total workforce in Greece of 4, 294,405 people, 89.7 percent or 3,854,055 were employed and 440,350 or 10.3 percent were unemployed in 1997, compared with a workforce in 1996 of 4,318, 302 in 1996 of which 89.7 percent or 3,871,923 were employed and 10.3 percent or 446,379 were unemployed.

The ESYE statistics also showed that employment had fallen in the primary sector (agriculture, stockbreeding, fisheries, forrestry and quarrying) from 26.6 percent of overall employment in 1988 to 19.8 percent in 1997, and in the secondary sector (industry, light industry) from 27 percent in 1988 to 22.5 percent last year, while employment in the tertiary sector (trade, banks, transports, communications, administration, etc.) had risen from 46.2 percent in 1988 to 57.7 percent in 1997.

ESYE said the highest unemployment rates among the 13 geographical regions of Greece were recorded last year in Western Macedonia, Eastern Central Greece and the Attica Prefecture with 14.5 percent, 12.8 percent and 12.2 percent respectively, while the lowest rates were in the Ionian Islands, the southern Aegean and Crete with 6.4 percent, 4.9 percent and 4.6 percent respectively.

Still problems with power supply

The Public Power Corporation's (DEH) electricity supply system had not been fully stabilised yet, and problems were expected throughout the day, Development Minister Vasso Papandreou said today.

She said DEH technicians were working non-stop to restore the last of the damages to the network caused by two days of unprecedented gale force winds and torrential rains that flooded homes and shops and uprooted trees.

"We hope that the overwhelming majority of the problems caused by fallen trees and electricity cables will be dealt with by nightfall," Papandreou said on arrival at the Parliament building for a Cabinet meeting.

The minister warned that if the problem that has arisen with DEH's third main north-south power conveyance line, construction of which had stopped for some time at Kryoneri, outside of Athens, was not dealt with "we will never have certainty for the entire Attica system".

She explained that most of the conveyance network had been completed, but work had stopped at Kryoneri due to local residents' opposition to the placement of the last five pylons.

"The government will see what it will do about this as soon as we have a ruling on the dispute between DEH and the lcoal residents that is pending before the Council of State," Papandreou said.

She noted that studies had been conducted by the National Metsovion University (Athens Polytechnic) and a specialised German institute on the effects of the electromagnetic fields on the Kryoneri residents' health, while all the relevant EU regulations, "which have been set out by specialised doctors", had been adhered to in the project.

Papandreou pointed out that the electromagnetic fields entailed were "tens of times below that allowed by international regulations".

She said it was inconceivable that minorities of people, taking advantage of available procedures "should obstruct projects of national significance, " she said.

Replying to press questions, Papandreou rejected criticism of negligence on the part of the state services in dealing with the storm and its repercussions.

DEH, she added, had said some time ago that the third line in Kryoneri was necessary for stability of the system under extreme circumstances.

"We indeed had such extreme bad weather, which was not usual, and the general blackout occurred," Papandreou added.

WEATHER

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

(M.P.)

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