Athens, 23 May 2022

President of Hellenic Parliament meets with new US Ambassador

The President of the Hellenic Parliament Constantine Tassoulas welcomed today to the Parliament the new US Ambassador to Greece George Tsounis.

During the meeting, the President of the Parliament referred to the continuous challenges that Greece is facing from neighbouring Turkey, "although the word challenges is a euphemism, I'd actually call them threats", as he characteristically stressed. "We are now facing a major crisis with Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine and no NATO member country, such as neighbouring Turkey, has the right to create or attempt to create a crisis within the crisis," Mr Tassoulas said. He added: "We must all keep a firm and strict stance to make our neighbours realize that these kinds of challenges and threats must finally come to an end."

Commenting on Russian aggression, Mr Tassoulas said: "Our role is no longer to engage in warfare, as Putin's Russia is forcing us to do. Our role is to encourage cooperation, and promote our welfare and growth together with protecting the environment ". The President also noted, "I am sure that we will soon turn again our attention to these aforementioned challenges, ambitions and prospects, after dealing with the Russian aggression and setting it aside thanks to the unity of free states, thanks to the unity of the western world, where we both belong, namely, the country you represent as a major player, but also my country, as a faithful, earnest and stable partner".

The US Ambassador referred to the US's kinship with Greece, as well as to the "historic" speech of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in the Congress. Mr Tsounis invited Mr Tassoulas to visit his homeland in the mountainous part of Nafpaktia and expressed his wish to visit Ioannina as well.

The President of the Hellenic Parliament offered to the US Ambassador a commemorative medal of the Bank of Greece in memory of the country’s territorial expansion during the 1912-'13 Balkan wars. "It is the expansion that took place in the region of Epirus, which illustrates Greece’s determination, together with its need to live peacefully in the modern world and pursue prosperity and the well-being of its inhabitants," said Mr Tassoulas.

He also offered Mr Tsounis the Hellenic Parliament’s important publication entitled "The Greeks in the Diaspora; 15th-21st century ", because" you are a child of the Diaspora ", as Mr Tassoulas said to Mr Tsounis.

Immediately after the meeting, the President of the Hellenic Parliament guided the US Ambassador around the Exhibition "Beholding Liberty! At the Hellenic Parliament, two centuries later", as well as around other areas of the Parliament.

The meeting was also attended by the Diplomatic Advisor of the Hellenic Parliament, Ambassador Constantine Economidis.

 

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