Issue No.
13376
Alternate Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas meets with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on February 2
THE FULL range of US-Greece and regional issues was on the agenda of Alternate Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas’ first official visit to Washington this week.
The trip came at a time when US-Greece relations are remarkably cool despite the clearly Atlanticist leanings of Prime Minister George Papandreou.
Droutsas met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for 15 minutes, followed by a 50-minute meeting with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.
Though it was hoped the trip would help lay the groundwork for a visit by Papandreou to Washington, no date was set.
“The invitation [by President Barack Obama] and the intention are there,” a foreign ministry source told the Athens News. “All that remains is to arrange the visit at the diplomatic level - the programme must be fixed.”
Thorny question
The lack of progress in resolving the name dispute with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is one of the thorns in the side of relations with the US, as Washington is eager to secure Fyrom’s admission to Nato and the European Union.
Papandreou has tried to seize the initiative by arranging repeated meetings with Fyrom’s prime minister, Nikola Gruevski. Washington has long advised such high-level political contacts between Greece and Fyrom in order to facilitate a solution, but the results to date have been paltry.
The government says that the UN framework for seeking a solution to the name dispute, with Matthew Nimetz as mediator, remains intact. Droutsas recently invited Nimetz to visit Athens to resume the process but a date has not been set.
The Greek foreign ministry insists that it will not accept an initial agreement on a name to be used by Fyrom without agreeing to the extent of its usage. Athens demands any name agreed to be used in all circumstances.
Fyrom’s stance has bordered on the sarcastic, as when Fyrom Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki recently proposed a bilateral agreement to avoid double taxation so as to help Greece deal with its economic crisis.
Papandreou spoke to Gruevski on February 3 and accepted an invitation to visit Skopje at some point.
UN’s Ban next
Droutsas was scheduled to discuss the Fyrom name dispute and efforts to reunify Cyprus at a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on February 4, as this newspaper went to press.
The ongoing Cyprus talks and Washington’s eagerness to achieve solid progress before the April elections in the Turkish-occupied territories also figured prominently in Droutsas’ meetings.
“We tell everyone that whoever wants to help must tell Turkey to change its stance on the Cyprus problem,” the foreign ministry source said. “We do not go to ask the Americans to intervene. We brief them on the situation and what our position is.“
On Greek-Turkish relations, Washington has every reason to be pleased with Papandreou’s acceptance of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s invitation to a broad-based dialogue on the Aegean. A foreign ministry source told the Athens News that US officials had expressed approval.
Droutsas plans an official visit to Ankara either at the end of the month or in early March.
ATHENS NEWS 30/08/2010, page: 7
