American Hellenic Institute

2017bookcover

Facebook Image
AHI Holds Farewell Dinner for Greek Ambassador Loucas Tsilas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: JONATHAN CLARKE
June 29, 1998 No. 26/98

AHI HOLDS FAREWELL DINNER
FOR GREEK AMBASSADOR LOUCAS TSILAS

On June 23, 1998, the American Hellenic Institute held a dinner at the Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C. to say farewell to Ambassador Loucas Tsilas and Mrs. Tsilas on the occasion of their departure from Washington. Ambassador Tsilas has been appointed as the Greek Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels and will take up his duties there in July.

Sixty guests attended including the Ambassador of Cyprus Andros Nicolaides, Representative Mike Bilirakis (R-Florida), Special Cyprus Coordinator Ambassador Thomas Miller, and former Secretary for Veterans Affairs, Under Secretary of State and Illinois Congressman, Ed Dewinski.

On behalf of AHI, Mr. Eugene T. Rossides presented Ambassador Tsilas with the AHI Hellenic Heritage Public Service Award and a first run copy of the just published book The Truman Doctrine of Aid to Greece: A Fifty-Year Retrospective. He praised Ambassador Tsilas' personal energies and efforts in the cause of Greek American relations as a result of which Greece's interests in the United States have been strongly projected and defended. At the same time, Ambassador Tsilas' personal qualities have won him many friends in the Administration, on Capitol Hill, among the Greek American community, and among the American people as a whole.

Speakers included Representative Bilirakis, Ambassador Miller, and Secretary Dewinski. They joined Mr. Rossides in praising Ambassador Tsilas for his accomplishments in Washington and in wishing him well in Brussels.

All speakers praised Mrs. Tsilas for her contributions to the performance of the Greek Embassy. AHI Chairman James Marketos presented Mrs. Tsilas with a Waterford crystal replica of the Capitol.

In his remarks, Ambassador Tsilas extolled AHI's role in keeping issues in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean in the forefront of the Administration and Congress' attention. He also praised AHI's contributions to fostering business and culture links between the United States and Greece.

AHI would like to take this opportunity to record its thanks to Ambassador and Mrs. Tsilas for their service to Greek American relations. All of us wish them both every success in Brussels and look forward to remaining in contact.