Athens , 13 January 2010

Mr. Kouvelis: First of all, I would like to express our support and our great sadness following last night’s disastrous earthquake in Haiti, a country that is very poor; a country already plagued by the problem of poverty.

I would like to say that the Foreign Ministry looked at the situation immediately to see how things are developing there. We were notified initially by international organizations regarding the assistance that is being sent to Haiti. We have already had a meeting with the Director of the Ministry’s International Development Assistance Service to look at the extent to which we can participate in the provision of assistance.

Assessing the facts, we saw that Haiti’s distance from Greece does not allow for our sending human resources from the Hellenic Rescue Team (EMAK) and volunteer organizations who immediately offered to provide help from Greece, because it will take 20-25 hours to get there, so it will be too late.

Consequently, we are already collaborating with international organizations that can help from countries close by. We have already initiated the provision of financial support for the work of Unicef for vulnerable population groups – mainly children. We are also collaborating with the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme to provide support and for feeding and supporting people.

And of course there is something else very important that we must mention: we are already working with our Embassy in Caracas, looking at the possibility of there having been even a single Greek on the island at the time of the earthquake, and we are ready to send people from the Embassy in Caracas to help, so that any Greeks on the island can leave and be assisted.

Thank you.