Alternate Foreign Minister Yiannos Kranidiotis said that Greece was fully supportive of
the initiative under way in the framework of the G8 proposal and expressed the hope that
efforts would bear fruit. He said he hoped that Mr. Milosevic would accept the terms
to be presented to him by Mr. Chernomyrdin. The Greek minister was speaking after
chairing a meeting of Greek, Russian and Swiss officials on coordinating
humanitarian aid shipments to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Attending the
meeting were Russian Emergency Services Minister Sergei Soygu, the director of development
cooperation at the Swiss foreign ministry Walther Fist, and Alexander Rondos, the Greek
foreign minister's
Balkans special envoy.
The three-way cooperation has already been formalised in the programme "Focus",
which has already seen the first dispatch of aid sent to Pristina on May 13. A
second shipment of aid, accompanied by representatives of the three countries, was sent
via Skopje to Yugoslavia on May 18 and a third is under way, destined for the Yugoslav
city of Nis. The programme has representative offices operating in Belgrade,
Podgorica and Pristina. Each are headed by nationals of each of the countries involved.