2008 Programs and Events
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Mayor Papageorgopoulos welcomed Ambassador Speckhard to Thessaloniki February 7
Ambassador Visits Thessaloniki
February 7, 2008
Ambassador Speckhard arrived in Thessaloniki on February 7, his first official visit there and second trip to the north since taking up his duties in Greece. The two-day program, arranged by Consul General Hoyt Brian Yee, began with a meeting with Mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos. "It really is a special trip for me to be in Thessaloniki, because I recognize what an important city this has been throughout history as a center for commerce, for culture, and for education," the U.S. envoy said, thanking the mayor and people of the city for their hospitality.
In his next meeting, with Minister of Macedonia and Thrace Margaritis Tzimas, the Ambassador discussed these themes and how the U.S. and Greece could cooperate further. The Ambassador also talked about the rich opportunities for northern Greece as an energy hub for all of Europe and the region's importance to stability in the Balkans. The United States is "committed to continuing to work together on the basis of the values and principles" of democracy and human rights that the two countries share," the Ambassador told reporters after the session. (Click here for transcript.)
Other events of the first day included a tour of Anatolia College, where the Ambassador met with President Richard Jackson. The latest group of 92 Americans exchange students taught the Ambassador some traditional Greek dances before he toured the Bissell Library and Stavros S. Niarchos Technology Center. In a stop at another cultural institution, Aristotle University's Rector Anastasios Manthos welcomed the Ambassador to an exhibit at the Teloglion Foundation of the Arts. Over lunch at the home of Consul General Yee, a group of business leaders talked about the Zone of Innovation in northern Greece and in the evening, the Hellenic Chamber of Commerce hosted a dinner at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
On February 8, Ambassador Speckhard toured the tomb of King Phillip of Macedonia in Vergina, along with U.S. Consulate General Thessaloniki’s Deputy Principal Officer Robert King. “It really is a treasure for Greece, but also really for the entire world, to be able to see this,” the Ambassador said of the famous archaeological site and museum. (Click here for transcript of an interview with ET-3 television). Before returning to Athens, the Ambassador also toured Thessaloniki’s Museum of Byzantine Culture and met with leaders of the city’s Jewish community.
Last November when he arrived in Greece, Ambassador Speckhard visited the north to attend the inauguration ceremony for the Turkey-Greece Interconnector gas pipeline near the city of Alexandropoulis with U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman.
