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]