The Alexis Tsipras Foundation made a premiere today as the 1st International Conference on Peace and Sustainable Development, organized jointly with the Zoran Zaev Foundation, began at the Athens Conservatory.

The president of SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, was present as well as the parliamentary group of SYRIZA, as well as executives from the New Left. Stefanos Kasselakis had a brief four-four with Alexis Tsipras. The two had a warm handshake, as can be seen from the photos, accompanied by smiles. However, due to the interview he had to give to ANT1, Stefanos Kasselakis sat for a short time and then left.

Also, PASOK executives attended, among them the former prime minister, George Papandreou.

kasselakis

Ahtsioglou

In a special ceremony as part of the Conference, exactly six years after the signing of the Treaty of Prespo, the former Prime Minister of Greece and the former Prime Minister of North Macedonia awarded the first Prespo Peace Prize to Matthew Nimitz, the UN Special Envoy for the nominal (1994-2019), who in his short speech called on “everyone to follow and respect the Prespa agreement and work hard for its implementation and if there are points in the agreement that need work then to sit together and find the solution”.

Nimitz

It was preceded by a video message from the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.

Mr. Nimitz called it a great honor to receive this award and especially thanked Messrs. Tsipras and Zaev and the former Foreign Ministers of the two countries “who made this agreement possible”. He also thanked the UN Secretary-Generals who supported him (Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon, Antonio Guterres) in his 20-year effort and especially the people of the two countries, as he said. “My biggest contribution was that I stayed there for 20 years and worked on the problem and I will say that for a mediator the first 18 years I listened to both sides, maybe in the last two years I contributed something”, “the main role that I played was to listen to both parties, try to maintain their trust, understand their concerns and help them explore solutions.”

Mr. Nimitz noted that “the Prespa agreement is very important for the two countries and the region, the whole region and beyond the region”. He pointed out that it is a compromise and commented that “compromises are hard to come by and once a compromise is made it’s very easy for people on both sides to say ‘if I was there I would have done a better job, I would have better outcome, the compromise is in favor of the other side and so on’, but we have to deal with it.’ He pointed out that “all agreements that are important tend to be compromises”, citing the US Constitution, the Treaty of Versailles, the grace of the United Nations as examples.

He added that these are all compromises “and because they are compromises it’s imperfect and people can always find some negative points, but think about what life would be like without these deals.” “These agreements are the framework of our culture, if we don’t follow them, if we don’t respect them then we face very serious problems. So I appeal today to everyone, all sides, not to undermine these agreements and in particular the Prespa agreement. We live in a very dangerous area, we live in the real world and in the real world we have agreements that are there for those in power to follow,” he said according to the official translation of the event.

He commented that “we don’t live in the Metaverse” where it’s nice, “but in the end you have to take off the (virtual reality) glasses and go back to the real world, which has real dangers.” “I appeal to everyone to follow and respect the Prespa Agreement and work hard to implement it and if there are points in the agreement that need work then sit together and find the solution,” he said, concluding his speech.