Greek Ambassador to Syria: I have received guarantees for the Greek Christians in the region

The Greek Ambassador to Damascus in Syria, Nikos Protonatarios, was interviewed by ERT.

He said, “At least for Damascus and more broadly, the situation is slowly returning to normal. Today, for example, banks have opened. There is no information about incidents or looting that we experienced on the first day. Therefore, the new authority, let’s put it this way, the rebels who include various groups that have taken over Damascus, have started to give some guarantees also for the minorities and especially for the Christian minority that we and the Greek expatriate and community are interested in. In other words, they have made an effort, as they did in Aleppo, where life is going on normally, to show that they respect religious freedom and that there will not be any negative treatment.”

He added: “In other words, there will not only be no acts of retaliation, but there is also information that they will be able to dress normally, that is, the clothing will not be headscarves, nor will it be an Iranian-type situation. That is, that they will respect, let’s say the cultural origins and habits of the Christian minorities.”

As to whether he had, himself had any contact with the rebels and possibly with the rebel leader, Protonatarios said: “I had a contact with someone. The rebels also wish, it seems, to talk to foreign embassies. There is, of course, the issue there that there is an organization that is designated as a terrorist organization, so we cannot formally negotiate with them. However, personally, as you know, there have been cases in the past, following historical events, where they were terrorist organizations (…). Therefore, in this case, you understand that we will be watching and doing. We have to admit that they are in the things now. They are the ones in power. They are the ones in charge of security. And therefore we necessarily have to have some conversation with them. I’m not saying negotiate, but at least to ensure our stay here and the security of the embassy and the homeland. We need to hear with our ears what their intentions are.”

As for whether he received any assurances about their intentions, he noted, “Look, we don’t know who is who right now. There is some, let’s say, point of contact that we are talking to at the moment. But we expect to have contacts at a higher level, probably at the level of a political director, so to speak, of the rebels. We expect. It’s all up in the air at the moment and I’m also waiting for instructions from my ministry (…).”

“About two hundred Greeks are in Damascus. While in Syria in general, there are about 700,000 Christians,” the Greek ambassador then pointed out.

On whether there are repatriation requests, that is, whether there are people who want to come to Athens, he stressed “We had requests from Aleppo, which were reduced quite a bit, this number dropped to 16. And now in Damascus (you understand that the situation is very fluid) and in the last 24 hours we have received about requests for 40 people.”

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