By the eminent Journalist Kostas Serezis
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The study that you undertake with knowledge, seriousness and a critical eye of the UN, as well as its relevant decisions that you do not fail to include on issues of the country and wider Hellenism, which are related to the application of international law and decisions to them based on its charter, come to connect, briefly in our consciousness, with the spirit, memories and symbolism of today's anniversary, as a pivotal crossroads in our path as a nation, which intensify the national spirit. Your references to the eternal efforts of man, since Greek antiquity in fact, to preserve peace, (after it was achieved first) possibly prove that this effort is titanic, but it is worth the effort.
The coverage is epigrammatic, it cannot be tiresomely expanded and become a book for experts only, but it is complete, eloquent and constructive for the ordinary reader who wants to be aware of what is happening around him that affects his place to the highest degree . Your position as Managing Director of the UN for Greece (based in Athens) and covering Israel and Cyprus, did not affect your objectivity, although this is not self-evident, considering the UN as well.
I note the esteem you had for SG Pérez De Cuéjar, as well as the private meeting you proposed to him with me, one afternoon at the old Psaropoulos in Glyfada, during his last departure from Cyprus, on his way to New York, where he had revealed useful information to me about the negotiators of the Greek Cypriot side in Cyprus, George Ioannidis and Tasso Papadopoulos... Your review of Cyprus is thorough.
The myriad phases it has gone through are the subject of your reflection and even your personal position, which is formulated in many places, such as e.g. in Gallo Plaza's report (p.81), which, as you rightly conclude, "was allowed to be buried with modesty". In soft tones, but in an obvious way, you convey your observations also in those cases, where an attempt was made to discredit the UN, which, however, is not spared from similar comments either, when it presented itself unwillingly, or contrary to its declarations. You conclude, therefore, on p. 85, "that the UN General Assembly was a step of significant assistance for our case.
A step that, while we constantly decide that we must take advantage of it again, the rulers after Makarios abandoned it from time to time, succumbing to pressure from outsiders". This book will now become a benchmark for its validity and objectivity. The Cypriot issue may have the largest area, for understandable reasons, but the global coverage of other issues, such as the so-called Macedonian issue, environmental issues with an emphasis on those of the Mediterranean, and other coverage of archival or informational importance, such as the speeches of Greek leaders who spoke at the UN, give breadth to your essay.
The topics you develop, classify your book as the only case of its kind, as far as I know of course, in Greek literature. It is right and the words of the ambassador E.T. have evidentiary value. and former Director of the Diplomatic Office of the Hellenic Parliament Ioannis Christofilis in his foreword, where, among other things, he considers that the book "Greece and the UN" should be in the hands of every diplomat, political scientist, etc.
Thank you for mentioning my name as well. Kind, but not excessive, dear Panagiotis.
Greetings,
Kostas S.>>
