Ping!
thens.- The Greek government on Friday played down the significance of a meeting between Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and the recently appointed foreign minister of the government of Kosovo, whose declaration of independence has not yet been recognised by Athens.
“There is no change in the Greek stance on the issue of Kosovo,” foreign ministry spokesman George Koumoutsakos stressed, while confirming that there had been a brief meeting between Bakoyannis and the Kosovo official Skender Hyseni on the sidelines of the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) summit in Bulgaria.
Asked why the meeting had not been announced, the spokesman replied that “short and informal meetings of this type, lasting only a few minutes, are routinely held on the sidelines of international conferences and are not always announced”.
He explained that the meeting with Hyseni had taken place the day after the government briefing for reporters covering the summit and had not been planned, so that it could be announced in advance. During the meeting, Bakoyannis had repeated the known Greek positions on the issue of Kosovo, the spokesman added.
“A country, like Greece, that has a special role in the region and aims at stability and security can talk to everyone, without this meaning any changed in its professed policy,” he said.
Koumoutsakos told reporters that the meeting was requested by Hyseni, who was attending the meeting as a representative of Kosovo’s political leadership within the framework of a delegation sent to the summit by the United Nations Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK).
The spokesman also pointed out that Athens had never concealed that a new state of affairs had arisen in Kosovo, adding that Greece would make a decision “after examining all aspects and ramifications of the new facts for the security of the region and in the context of wider national interests”.
Koumoutsakos’ statements about the meeting were cited later on Friday by alternate government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros, who also stressed that such brief meetings were a routine practice at international conferences and that Greece’s position had not changed.
According to main opposition PASOK’s spokesman George Papaconstantinou, however, the meeting had been “secret” and indicated a possible change in the government’s position on independence for Kosovo.
“Mrs Dora Bakoyannis was caught in the act. The question is what is the government’s true position on the issue of Kosovo’s independence, because we are hearing various things but seeing a tactic of secret diplomacy that is not compatible with the decisions of the United Nations nor with the things that the government has itself said from time to time,” the spokesman stressed.
Papaconstantinou had been asked to comment on a statement by PASOK’s shadow foreign minister Andreas Loverdos claiming a secret meeting between Bakoyannis and Hyseni.
“We once again call on the government to not unilaterally recognise a declaration of independence that destabilises the region and is counter to the fundamental decisions of the United Nations,” PASOK’s spokesman concluded.
Also, in commenting on a meeting between the FM Dora Bakoyannis and a Kosovo official, KKE leader Aleka Papariga said that “we consider the choice made by the Foreign Minister to meet, officially or unoficially ... with her counterpart from the new protectorate of Kosovo as a provocation. This is tantamount to recognition, at a time when fragmentation of countries should be condemned, and that of Serbia in particular; at a time when the creation of more and more protectorates in the Balkans is being organised. It is a provocation.”
The good news seems to be that a democrat will be in the whitehouse when the Serb and Russian tanks roll into Kosovo.
Then again disregarding history, they might take that fateful decision to step into the slime that constitutes the post modern “hellbent on destruction” world, with pimps like this acting as spokesmen:
“It doesn't really matter if Paraguay has recognized Kosovo,” this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, was quoted as saying. “Well over 65 percent of the wealth of the world has.”