Athens News Agency: News in English (AM), 98-06-21

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

NEWS IN ENGLISH

Athens, Greece, 21/06/1998 (ANA)

MAIN HEADLINES

• Ionian Bank workers vote to return to work
• Tension over Greek F-16s' unjustified-Simitis
• Clinton call to PM not meant to pressure Greece-ambassador
• Former FYROM minister to Greece on official visit
• Albanian worker brutally killed
• Greece rejects report of damage to archaeological sites
• U.S. urges end to tension over Cyprus
• Tsohatzopoulos defends presence of Greek jets
• President to visit Cyprus
• PFP, NATO hold military exercises
• Weather
• Foreign Exchange

NEWS IN DETAIL

Employees at Ionian Bank end their six-week strike on Monday and return to work, a general assembly of workers decided late on Saturday.

The end to the strike came a day after shareholders in Ionian's parent company Commercial Bank voted to sell a 51 percent stake in the bank called after protesting Ionian workers disrupted and eventually cancelled the scheduled morning meeting.

Employees at Ionian Bank have staged a rolling strike since May 11 to protest the privatisation, despite court rulings declaring the strike illegal.

On hearing of the end of the strike, both Commercial Bank management and National Economy and Finance Minister Yannos Papandoniou reiterated an earlier commitment to safeguarding jobs and pension rights of workers at Ionian.

The sale of Ionian is being seen as a test of the government's determination to carry out its privatisation programme in the face of strikes and protests, as it has committed itself to the European Union over the privatisation plan.

Tension over Greek F-16s' unjustified-Simitis

Prime Minister Costas Simitis said on Friday that the brief presence of four Hellenic Air Force F-16 jets at the Paphos Air Base in Cyprus had nothing to do with the current tension being created by Turkey, since Ankara had been cultivating tension even before the visit.

The premier, who was quoted by government spokesman Dimitris Reppas in press statements, was addressing a joint meeting of the inner cabinet and the ruling PASOK party's political secretariat, which he briefed on the results of the European Union summit held in Cardiff earlier in the week.

Mr. Reppas quoted Mr. Simitis as telling the meeting that the Greek aircraft "on a training mission" had been invited by the legitimate Cypriot government, had conducted their flight in a completely peaceful and harmless manner and that "this tension is totally unjustified."

Clinton call to PM not meant to pressure Greece-ambassador

U.S. President Bill Clinton's phone call to Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis during the European Union's summit at Cardiff last week was a phone call to a friend and ally and not calculated to force Greece into making any unilateral concessions, U.S. ambassador to Greece Nicholas Burns said.

In an interview published in Sunday newspaper To Vima, Burns said Clinton never intended the phone call to be perceived as any form of "threat".

Simitis last Tuesday disclosed that he had received a telephone call from Clinton on Monday night requesting that Athens consent to a strengthening of the European Union's relations with Turkey, since this would allow Washington to exercise all its influence on Ankara towards normalising Greek-Turkish relations.

Simitis said he had told Clinton it was not possible for Greece to accept any rewording of the Luxembourg summit decisions regarding the EU's relations with Turkey.

Former FYROM minister to Greece on official visit

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia foreign minister Blagoja Hatzinski begins an official two-day visit to Greece on Monday and is expected to raise the issue of the name of his country in his meetings with Greek government officials.

In an interview published in the Sunday To Vima newspaper, Hatzinski rules out any change to Skopje's constitutional name of "Republic of Macedonia", saying his compatriots would refuse such a proposal "100 percent" if a referendum were held on the issue.

Hatzinski said no resolution of the name issue would nevertheless require Greece and FYROM to "learn to live with the problem with dignity as their strategic interests coincide in 99 percent of cases."

Greece objects to the former Yugoslav republic's use of the name "Macedonia", saying it implies expansionist designs against its northern province of the same name.

Albanian worker brutally killed

An Albanian migrant worker died at dawn in northern Greece on Sunday after being stabbed in the head and then strangled by unknown attackers.

The man was identified at Edward Pishiri (phonetic spelling), 29, from Tirana.

The assault came while Pishiri was sleeping on the first-floor balcony of a farmhouse outside the village of Svoronos in Pieria.

Katerini police investigating the murder believe the motive was robbery.

Greece rejects report of damage to archaeological sites

Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos has strongly refuted allegations in a British press report claiming that antiquities and archaeological sites in Greece were being destroyed or given only cursory study in order to facilitate construction of a new museum near the Acropolis.

The article appeared in the London daily, "The Times".

"Quite coincidentally, just a few days after the startling revelations of (British historian) William St. Clair about the damage cuased to the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum and the concealing of the truth from international organisations and the international scientific community, some British newspapers have published reports claiming that archaeological finds from excavations are being destroyed in order to build the new Acropolis Museum in Athens," Venizelos said.

During the 1980s, late culture minister Melina Mercouri spearheaded a campaign for the return of the marbles to Greece, something pursued by every Greek govermment since then.

U.S. urges end to tension over Cyprus

"The United States have urged Greece and Turkey to limit tension and avoid actions which could be construed by the other side as being provocative," White House spokesman Mike McCurry said.

An ANA dispatch from Washington also quoted McCurry on Thursday night as saying that "the two countries can find ways to reduce tension in the Aegean".

McCurry was commenting on tension that has arisen after the landing of Greek and Turkish warplanes on Cyprus, the northern third of which has been occupied by Turkish troops for the past 24 years.

Tsohatzopoulos defends presence of Greek jets

National Defence Minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos said it would do Turkey no good to use the Cyprus problem, citing Nicosia's planned installation of Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missiles or Greece's support for Cyprus within the two countries' joint defence doctrine, as a resonse to results of the EU summit in Cardiff.

Tsohatzopoulos called on the neighbouring country to take advantage of the "room given it" and work towards adopting the conditions prevailing in EU countries in order to upgrade its relations with the Community.

Commenting on the visit to Paphos air base earlier this week of Greek jets, Tsohatzopoulos reiterated that it was Nicosia's inalienable right to grant permission for brief visits by military aircraft within the framework of the training policy followed by Greece and Cyprus as part of its joint defence doctrine.

President to visit Cyprus

President of the Republic Kostis Stephanopoulos will be made an honorary citizen of the city of Evagora by the Municipality of Famagusta and presented with the "broken gold key" of the Turkish-occupied city of Famagusta.

Stephanopoulos will be making the first-ever visit to Cyprus by a Greek President on June 25-28. The ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 28 at the Famagusta Cultural Centre in the town of Deryneia.

PFP, NATO hold military exercises

Partnership for Peace and NATO member-states armed contigents have initiated the joint military exercises "Prometheus '98", which include refugee handling senarios, and are set to last until June 30, 1st Army officials announced.

PFP nations, Armenia, Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and NATO, Italian, Dutch and Greek soldiers are already in place at the Kilkis prefecture, the 1st Army announcement noted.

The announcement added that while the exercises was planned for some time now, it has coinsided with the Kosovo crisis and this development will affect the senarios of the exercises.

It should be noted that that the exercises in Kilkis are part of the NATO- PFP framework for the inter-operational coordination between the armed forces of the participants in peace-keeping missions.

WEATHER

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

(C.S.)

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