Greeks on Goldstone Report Follow-Up

C O N F I D E N T I A L ATHENS 000139 SIPDIS AMEMBASSY ASTANA PASS TO AMCONSUL ALMATY AMEMBASSY ANKARA PASS TO AMCONSUL ADANA AMEMBASSY BELGRADE PASS TO AMEMBASSY PODGORICA AMEMBASSY ATHENS PASS TO AMCONSUL THESSALONIKI AMEMBASSY MOSCOW PASS TO AMCONSUL VLADIVOSTOK AMEMBASSY BERLIN PASS TO AMCONSUL DUSSELDORF AMEMBASSY MOSCOW PASS TO AMCONSUL YEKATERINBURG AMEMBASSY BERLIN PASS TO AMCONSUL LEIPZIG AMEMBASSY HELSINKI PASS TO AMCONSUL ST PETERSBURG E.O. 12958: DECL: 2020/02/25 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM UNGA GR SUBJECT: Greeks on Goldstone Report Follow-Up REF: STATE 15722 CLASSIFIED BY: George Frowick, Political Counselor; REASON: 1.4(B), (D) ¶1. (C) On February 25, Poloff discussed Ref points on U.S. positions on the upcoming UNGA vote on the Goldstone Report with Stelios Gavriil, MFA A6 Directorate for Arab Countries and the Middle East. Gavriil stated that Greece intended to abstain in the upcoming vote. ¶2. (C) According to Gavriil, Greece's abstention in the previous November 5, 2009 vote was the first time Greece had not sided with the Palestinian position, and the decision was thus warmly received by Israel. The abstention was due to two factors: 1) Greece didn't want the Goldstone issue to interfere with ongoing Middle East peace talks, and 2) Greece wanted to follow EU consensus. This time around, Greece would follow the EU majority position advocating abstention (Gavriil noted that the EU nations were split into three different camps). In addition, Greece felt that Special Envoy Mitchell's efforts were positive and did not want to distract from his progress. SPECKHARD