Greece needs to emancipate itself from Turkey and to stop comparing itself to her, advised the US ambassador in Athens Daniel Speckhard. His comment was an answer to a journalist’s question of why the US president Barack Obama will visit Turkey at the end of the week and he won’t visit Greece. “The relationship between Washington and Athens needs to be freed from the “Turkey” factor. We need to widen and deepen the Greek-American relationship without connecting it with the Greek-Turkish or the Turkish-American one,” said Daniel Speckhard.

“The US embassy in Athens does not have President Obama’s schedule in Turkey and I do not know whether he will meet the Ecumenical Patriarch Vartolomei,” added the US diplomat. He explained that diplomacy is not a basketball game, where you score a point with a visit and after that another one with the statement of Hillary Clinton about the Ecumenical Patriarchy.

A field here Greece could be very helpful partner to the US is the war in Afghanistan. Greece is participating only with a group of military doctors and it can widen its participation, believes ambassador Speckhard. Even more, Greece is directly interested from the situation in this Asian country, because only last year, 25 000 Afghans have sought refuge in the country. Another field where Greece could be a valuable partner to the US is the fight against distributing mass destruction weapons, because on one hand Greece is one of the countries with a huge fleet and on the other – it has very good relationship with the Arab world.

Daniel Speckhard announced that America has given its recommendations to Athens for including Greece into the Visa Waiver program and right now it is up to Greece to apply those recommendations, in order the American visas to be cancelled for Greek citizens.