American Jewish Congress leaders said Monday that they have every reason to believe Greece will establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, perhaps within two years. The two countries are cooperating in tourism and agricultural projects.
AJCongress officials, led by honorary president Howard Squadron, just returned from Greece, where they met last week with Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias and other government officials, as well as members of the opposition New Democratic Party.
Squadron said government and opposition party officials uniformly acknowledged in the meetings that Greece should establish full diplomatic relations with Israel “at the earliest possible time.” He pointed out that following Spain’s recent resumption of diplomatic relations with Israel, Greece is the only member of the European Community that does not have such relations with Israel.
Squadron said the Greek officials told his group that an important motivation for Greek backing of Third World and Arab aspirations was the need to gain their support in Greece’s dispute with Turkey over Cyprus. “Nonetheless,” Squadron said, “it was uniformly acknowledged by both government and opposition officials that Greece should establish full diplomatic relations with Israel at the earliest possible time.”
He declared that the delegation “was encouraged by its conversations with Prime Minister Papandreou to believe that the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel will not be long delayed and would certainly occur in the current term of the current government,” which runs through early 1989.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
