United States Foreign Relations Greece

President Clinton acknowledged on Saturday the U.S. government's support for the widely despised military junta that ruled Greece more than 25 years ago, but he stopped short of apologizing outright for Washington's letting Cold War concerns obscure a moral obligation to oppose a dictatorship. The support that the American government gave to the regime of the colonels from 1967 to 1974 has shadowed U.S.-Greek relations ever since and has compounded the difficulty of U.S.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday that concerns about terrorism will not lead to sanctions against Greece and Pakistan, no matter what a new congressional report may say. A congressional panel recommends the United States change the way it tackles terrorism by taking several measures, among them threatening sanctions against states such as Greece and Pakistan and increasing the power of the CIA and Army to act in the United States.

Greece said it will close the important U.S. Hellenikon Air Base outside Athens. "One of the decisions of the Greek government is the abolition of the Hellenikon base," government spokesman Sotiris Kostopoulos told reporters in Athens. Negotiations between Greece and the United States on a new agreement for American military bases have been deadlocked since they began last November.

President Clinton acknowledged on Saturday the U.S. government's support for the widely despised military junta that ruled Greece more than 25 years ago, but he stopped short of apologizing outright for Washington's letting Cold War concerns obscure a moral obligation to oppose a dictatorship. The support that the American government gave to the regime of the colonels from 1967 to 1974 has shadowed U.S.-Greek relations ever since and has compounded the difficulty of U.S.

The United States and Greece on Friday ended a round of negotiations here on military base rights in Greece and will resume the talks in December, the State Department said.

Talks on U.S. use of Greek military bases will resume in Athens early next month, Greek Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias said after meeting in Washington with Secretary of State George P. Shultz. But there has been no change on the deadlocked issue that prompted the United States to break off the talks Sept. 5--Greece's demand for U.S. forces to vacate Hellenikon air base at Athens airport, Papoulias said.

Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou said Sunday he will call a referendum on the presence of U.S. military bases in Greece if Washington asks to retain them after a current agreement expires in December, 1988. Under the 1983 accord, Washington maintains four major military installations and about 20 minor ones in Greece in return for providing Athens with $500 million in credits. Papandreou told Parliament that his government has made no commitment on the bases.

President Clinton on Friday made his long-anticipated nomination of former House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) to be ambassador to Japan. Former State Department spokesman R. Nicholas Burns was tapped to be ambassador to Greece. If confirmed by the Senate, Foley would replace former Vice President Walter F. Mondale in Tokyo. Mondale left in December, and the critical diplomatic post is vacant.

With tear gas wafting through downtown Athens, firebombs bursting along police lines and anti-American demonstrators sending paving stones through shop windows, President Clinton saluted U.S.-Greek ties Friday and prodded Greece to seek reconciliation with Turkey. The disorders, fueled by residual anger over this spring's U.S.-led bombing of Yugoslavia, were the worst in the Greek capital in years and among the most violent to greet a traveling American president in two decades.

Greeks, who once worshiped a god of hospitality, still take pride in their generosity to guests. But the Anti-Power Reception Committee for Bill Clinton is something else. When the American president arrives this evening for a state visit, the committee, a tiny band of black-clad anarchists, will join in wider street protests against what its members call U.S. bullying in the Balkans.

Thousands of jubilant demonstrators chanting, "Clinton, fascist, murderer!" marched through Athens after earlier anti-U.S. protests led President Clinton to delay a visit here. Gathering on the day originally slated for Clinton's arrival, a crowd estimated at 10,000 marched from the city center to the U.S. Embassy in a rally staged by leftist and pacifist groups and supported by the Greek Communist Party. The march, under heavy police presence, ended peacefully.

President Clinton on Friday made his long-anticipated nomination of former House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) to be ambassador to Japan. Former State Department spokesman R. Nicholas Burns was tapped to be ambassador to Greece. If confirmed by the Senate, Foley would replace former Vice President Walter F. Mondale in Tokyo. Mondale left in December, and the critical diplomatic post is vacant.

After 2 1/2 years of friction, Greece and Macedonia signed an agreement Wednesday settling all but one issue between them and removing a worrisome source of tension in the Balkans. Former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, the special U.N. envoy who mediated between the two, described the accord as one of "very broad scope and deep meaning" that could serve as a model for warring states in the region once the fighting dies down.

Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis reminded President Bush on Friday that Greece joined the international coalition against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, although the fight "would exact a heavy toll on our hard-pressed economy," and tartly linked the contribution to Greece's bitter rivalry with Turkey over the division of Cyprus.

President Bush, opening the first visit by a U.S. President to Greece and Turkey since 1959, pressed the Greek government of Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis on Thursday to settle the 17-year dispute over Cyprus, "and do so this year." Taking the unusual step of interjecting himself immediately and publicly into a dispute in which the United States has had relatively little involvement, Bush pledged U.S. assistance to Greece, Turkey and Cyprus.

Greek and U.S. officials on Sunday signed a defense treaty allowing two major U.S. military bases to remain in the country for at least eight years. Washington threw in 62 warplanes and four naval destroyers to sweeten the deal. The treaty, which still must be ratified by the Greek Parliament and the U.S. Congress, guarantees defense of Greece's territory against any hostile country, including neighbor and fellow NATO ally Turkey.