Thank you all and indeed I think I'm a good friend of Georgetown University and I'm working closely with professors here and with Dean Gallucci trying to strengthen this friendship and making a very solid presence of Greece within this Augusta University. So we are looking at them and hope that when we have some good news where they will be announced by those that should announce them but anyways anyway let me just tell you that there is already a chair of more Greek studies in the Georgetown University and underlining that not because I'm Greek but because I think that there is increasingly important to go back to the Greek classics. It's important for everybody including Greeks. So to go back to the Greek classics in order to understand and to accurately analyze today's global phenomena. So Greeks had not known or should be known just from the 300 Spartans but also from many others who have predicted accurately that the solutions on the problems of the world exist and the solutions to these problems are there. In preparing this presentation today which not actually prepared there is not anything written. I found that Heraclitus or the Socrates or many others have - were the first to device the concept of soft power politics which is a thing the characteristic of Greece for modern Greece and plus as been here and I agree with you that as an Ambassador I'm not a man who is closing his office and who is drafting or reading telegrams. Actually I I don't we receive here may be 150 pages per day but I think I'm very pleased that I'm able not to read more than 10. So we like the fresh air and the fresh air is not always within any foreign ministers bureaucracy. The fresh air including that of Greece - the fresh air is outside is in the academic community, universities, colleges think tanks and this is also why I'm traveling throughout the country from the southwest, from the CLA to the northeast to try to understand what people are thinking. So soft power in terms of the description of Professor George Bernier which from another Augusta University is exactly what the Greece is image and role today. In region who has produced may be more books, more history and more pages that can digest. 21st century Greece is certainly a different Greece from the last century for the following reasons. First, Greece is a regional protagonist in projecting the soft power image. Greece is over 50 years, a member of NATO and over a quarter of the century member of the European Union. So Greece's role is inspiring its all neighbors that whoever makes sacrifices whoever takes the appropriate political decisions including those who require so called political cost will be rewarded. So we have the privilege to have good political leaders who took a good decision for Greece since 1945 1950 and this is why Greece today is there. We make the good choices at a good moment. There were many options offered to us but I thing it was a wise decision. So Greece is already there where all its neighbors who want to go. The main trend in Europe now, in the southeastern Europe and beyond, Turkey included is to become a member of the European Union. That's the new common, I would say a great idea of all southeastern European countries, turkey included. And Greece's role is exactly to to bridge Europe with this neighborhood. Second, Greece is also a protagonist as economic player. We were an aid depending economy in the immediate of the bloody Second World War and equal bloody civil war. So Greece was very much depending for the American aid in the late 40s and early 50s, Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine and then very much very important aid consumer in terms of the European Union funds. But for the last years Greece's economic policy is very extroverted. We are providing economic assistance not just to our neighborhood but in Africa, working closely with USA aid, World Bank or other institutions and also we have we understood that you cannot be prosperous if your neighbors do not feel well. So Greece is is now an economic leader within the its region, having invested over $18 billion in southeastern Europe and Turkey included. It's a very extroverted economy and our the our economic figures and indicators are pretty good, our GDP rate is the second higher in the euro zone, our exports are have increased records, just today I was looking that the our exports increase in March 2007 are 17 percent higher than March 2006. And also we reduced the deficit from 7.8 percent in 2004; it was very much due to the Olympics organization of the Olympic Games to 2.6 - to 2.6 this year. So in terms of economic figures we are doing we feel pretty well, but what is needed now is to improve our competitiveness. Because this century and in terms of globalization of economic antagonism and I use antagonism its because it's truly is a global competition, you cannot remain in the race if you are not competitive. So Greece is a soft power country, is a regional protagonist and I want to believe it's also a regional leader, but not in the terms of egocentric or ethnocentric leader but as a leader and that shows that there is a way out from the problems. I want also to defend the point that Greece is also a global player. And we are not a global player because we are participating in organizations like European Union who is a global player, but because we do have the largest shipping industry at the global level. Greek ship owned fleet is number one and in this century where the term energy security has increasingly is becoming increasingly important. Greece's contribution to the global trade, to the global transportation of energy, of goods, commodities, crude oil and natural gas will increase. Using the sea lanes is nothing new in Greece's history but is becoming the century will again become the century of Greek shipping power. And it's in this last point I think that we can find very solid basis of joint interest between United States and Greece in this century. As a very careful reader of the American literature, both give and we buy the book shops or the Academic in the faculty libraries but those were the official documents that count from DOD or from State Department of the White House. It's not difficult to understand that global the security and the safety of the sea lanes at a global level is an important strategic interest and concern for United States but it's also very much so for Greece. Meeting earlier with Dean Gallucci I said I am going to talk a little bit on China, and I think may be our those who came to list to to listen to a great ambassador, not not exclusively addressing the issues related to Turkey or to Cyprus will be surprised that I want to to talk a little bit on on China. But very much so because Greece is very much interested on on Chinese economic performance as interested are the United States. 60 percent of China's total Sea Bourne trade is transported by Greek ships. 60 percent also of China's total imports, crude oil are transported by Greek ship owned - by Greek ships. Greece is also a country of 11 million people, which is even difficult to see in this global map. Compared to China to Brazil to Argentina to Australia or to other larger geographic entities - that Greece is one of the countries in the world that has drawn the greatest advantages from the globalization. So we are very much interested in global trade, in free trade and in safe and secure transportation of commodities, goods but also of people. 40 percent of our GDP is shaped from the shipping industry, but also from tourism. I think 18 to 20 percent is tourism and the rest 20 percent is shipping industry. So may be the figures allow us from the (Sanhua) it is so important for Greece to have easy access to to China and why also is very important for us to have to increase our volume of trades with with a country like China which is very far from us. Hi hi welcome friends. The Malaka Strait in South China Sea South China Sea is - are very far from Greece but also are have a fundamental that teaching both on from United States but an equal and strategic importance for us because are economically important for Greece and Greece's shipping industry. So Greece is not anymore a country isolated it cut off the rest of the European Union mainland. But it is increasingly becoming a global layer through its shipping industry. In our immediate neighborhood, I think that this year is very critical, because you have to face the realities, Kosovo final state of settlement, present Ahtisaari, some one who is very knowledgeable, a man that has a great experience in dealing with sensitive global issues have devised a solution which is independence under heavy international monitoring. The Security Council has been briefed on peace intentions and the reactions from the immediate parties were those that we were all expecting is the Kosovo Albanians, I think they are very satisfied but their enthusiasm has been laid down for good reasons. On the contrary in Belgrade, I think the Ahtisaari's proposals have been have had a cool reception. What is important from our perspective and Kosovo is 140 miles form our border, whole 140 miles. So it's less and Philadelphia to Baltimore International Airport. It's important to avoid any any actions mostly by those indirectly concerned to make things worse than they are now. They have to work I think European it's important for European Union to maintain its unity. It's important to engage Russia and its very good omen which did not exist in the early 90s that European Union and United States do have an excellent strategic cooperation on in Southwestern Europe. 50 years ago we didn't have we have disunion with in European Union, national agendas prevailing over European Union interests and also a lack of lack of cooperation between United States and European Union for many years in the early 90s and the Bosnia that was the most typical example of this lack of good coordination. So what it matters now is to device a procedure a process rather that will devise a solution accommodable with the European Union because ultimately we do believe that European Union was and remains the stronger soft power mechanism that we do have. And I think what what is important is to provide a set of incentives for Serbia. I think with in the Ahtisaari plan the Kosovo Albanians have got may be 85 to 90 percent of what they were expecting to get. But the Serbs feel that that's the deep-rooted feeling in the Serbian nation, I am not addressing the Serbian political elite, the Serbs are feeling that they are all losers and I don't think that's in Europe and that some lessons drawn from the 20th century is a good omen is a good thing to create the feeling of losers and winners. If we cannot have a win-win solution at least we must try to work out some incentives that would make a country, a nation and people not feeling a loser. So Greece along with its European Union neighbors and in very close cooperation with the United States, we are promoting this this way the European option for Serbia, or to make things more pragmatic we think that European Union has to engage Serbia in the membership process. And I think that this is not an antidote for Kosovo but it is the only way to summand a long-term stability. Kosovo and Serbia cannot remain the black hole of Europe, Kosovo and Serbia are in the centre of Europe and not on the periphery of Europe. So it is important for us, its important for the European Union, in close cooperation to save cost for the European through the United States, to devise a framework where the ultimately the solution of of the Kosovo final status will become more palatable and we can secure a soft landing. Turkey and now whatever I think in this page from a Greek Ambassador say. Our policy in Turkey is not different from the policy we have contracted with all our neighbors in the Balkans. And again Greece believes that European Union Membership and nothing less than that can become a catalyst for a Turkey - different Turkey. A Turkey with moral reforms, more openness and more tolerance to foreign - to religious communities and to ethnic communities and the Turkey which will be increasingly engaged in the European Union not just process but also a way of thinking, I understand that this period is very critical there because they are going to elections, but I think its important for Turkey to understand that there are moves that can put Turkey on the fast track in Europe. And these moves can be summarized as Cyprus. We have an anamoly there Cyprus. We have a country which is a member of European Union and 40 percent of its own territory it's occupied by a country member of NATO and who is just poised to become member of the European Union. So I think that this anamoly, it has to be remedied and I think Turkey does not need for 35,000 or 40,000 occupation troupes in Cyprus. When United Nations decided that 15,000 troupes were enough to pacify Lebanon southern Lebanon after the last July's war and to secure the Lebanese boarders and the most critical part of the fighting, no body can understand why Turkey maintains 40,000 or 35,000 to 38,000 troupes in Cyprus. So this is an anamoly and I am I remember very well President Reagan's words. I think that was 1987 or 1988, when he visited Berlin, addressing the Wall in Berlin, he said, Prime Minister Gorbachev - President Gorbachev, I asked you take out this wall. So I think that the normal saying for mass would be Prime Minister Dogan just simply remove this Wall, this is the last wall that divides Europe. It's the last wall in Europe, it is the wall that Turkey's troupes have created in Cyprus and the second fast track would be for Turkey to understand, to realize, to assess that the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul is tremendous asset for Turkey its not a liability. It would have it would, can improve fundamentally Turkey's credential's, ask Turkey's part to become the member of European Union if Turkey was going to the patriarchate Gate, the rights to possess its own property and the reopening of the Halki Theological School - Halki Seminary, and third to recognize them the ecumenical patriarch of Turkey is the spiritual leader institution of millions millions of Christians or Christian Orthodox its not just a Greek Turkish issue its spiritual leader of millions of Christian Orthodox. I prefer to put put a full stop here and try to to respond to the questions which I hope will be a many and aggressive, compatible to the good edition of this University Thank you. So I am ready to take your questions and answers.
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