Clinton Arrival Met With Greek Protests

With tear gas wafting through downtown Athens, firebombs bursting along police lines and anti-American demonstrators sending paving stones through shop windows, President Clinton saluted U.S.-Greek ties Friday and prodded Greece to seek reconciliation with Turkey.

The disorders, fueled by residual anger over this spring’s U.S.-led bombing of Yugoslavia, were the worst in the Greek capital in years and among the most violent to greet a traveling American president in two decades.

Greek officials said 41 protesters were detained, with 18 of them held on charges of disturbing the peace. On the street, it appeared that at least 10,000 people took part in the demonstrations.

The protests, which reached their peak as night fell and Air Force One landed, were staged out of sight of the president. He traveled through nearly deserted streets from which traffic, and protests, had been banished.

Images of the president and his family stepping off the plane competed on Greek television with split-screen pictures of the violence around Syntagma (Constitution) Square.

“I have come here as a filos mous, a friend of Greece,” the president said after arriving. “And I look forward to experiencing that wonderful quality of Greek hospitality known to all the world as philoxenia.”

He held up Greece as a model for the Balkans: It has the highest economic growth rate in the European Union, is a gateway for the region’s markets and is “a driving force to rebuild war-torn nations and to bring them into Europe,” the president said.

Clinton stressed the common threads that link Greece and the United States, saying, “We are allies with a shared commitment to peace and security.”

But Friday’s protests reflect deep opposition in Greece, stronger than in any other NATO nation, to the alliance’s campaign to end Serbian atrocities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. More than 90% of Greek citizens opposed the military campaign.

Many Greeks also believe that the United States favors regional rival Turkey in territorial disputes and on war-divided Cyprus. They also hold bitter memories of U.S. support for the repressive military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 until 1974.

The president pointed out at a state dinner in the presidential palace that at every opportunity in Turkey, his previous stop, he urged the leaders and the people “to seek reconciliation with the people and the leaders of Greece,” and he committed himself to helping resolve the differences between the two countries.

Clinton’s visit to Athens was originally scheduled for 2 1/2 days, rather than the 22 hours now planned, and was to open his 10-day European journey. But the threat of potentially violent protests forced a postponement--at Athens’ request, the White House said.

As Air Force One neared the airport on the city’s outskirts, protesters burned an American flag in Constitution Square. Others waved banners saying “Yankee Leave the Balkans Alone” and “The Only Superpower Is the People.”

Several rows of Communist-led construction union workers locked arms at the front of the crowd and moved forward. A phalanx of police officers wearing gas masks pushed back. Within 20 seconds, violence had erupted.

Police opened fire with tear gas and water cannons. Protesters scattered, setting fires and hurling firebombs at the police in running skirmishes that lasted more than two hours.

Masked and hooded protesters pulled up paving stones and smashed the windows of scores of parked cars and businesses, paying special attention to banks and automated cash machines. Burglar alarms wailed, tear-gas canisters popped open, and metal gates were slammed down as shops closed in a rush.

Athenians have seen these protests before--during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and in previous Novembers during the still-emotional anniversary of a 1973 student uprising that was crushed by the junta.

But this was the worst outburst in years, residents said, because the destruction appeared to be indiscriminate. It rivaled protests that occurred when President Bush visited South Korea in 1989 and President Reagan visited Spain four years before that.

Before heading to Greece, Clinton spent five days in Turkey, splitting his time between an official state visit and a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, attended by leaders from North America, Europe and Central Asia.

The summit completed revisions in the organization’s charter and in the 1990 treaty restricting conventional arms in Europe. It set new country-by-country restrictions on tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery pieces, combat aircraft and attack helicopters. Previously, the restrictions had been assigned to the two Cold War blocs--the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact and NATO.

In a statement, Clinton said the adaptations “will enhance peace, security and stability throughout Europe.” U.S. participation requires Senate approval.

The pact, known as the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, was one of the first East-West achievements that accompanied the end of the Cold War. It brought the destruction of 70,000 pieces of military equipment and, just as important, predictability and visibility to routine military operations on the Continent.

Although the summit moved beyond its opening-day focus on the fighting in Chechnya, the breakaway Russian province, Clinton said he was encouraged by Russia’s signing of revisions in the OSCE charter.

Russia has argued forcefully that its military operations in Chechnya are an internal matter that should be of no concern to other nations, a view roundly rejected at the summit.

The charter revision states that other nations have the right and obligation to be concerned about other nations’ internal matters, citing a responsibility to protect human rights around the world.

Clinton said the acceptance of the provision, to which Moscow had objected, “is a significant move by Russia.”

In addition to the criticism over Chechnya, Russia was snubbed when Azerbaijan and Georgia, two former Soviet republics, signed a pact Thursday with Turkey to build an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. The route, strongly backed by the United States, would bypass Russia and Iran.

Russia had argued that a more northerly path through its own territory would be cheaper. But pipeline advocates contended that Russia, facing continual conflict in Chechnya, could not guarantee the safety of its route.

Russian officials muted their criticism, suggesting that a cost of as much as $8 billion would prevent the pipeline from ever being built. But when asked Friday about the agreement, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov protested Russia’s exclusion.

“We view attempts to exert political pressure and to exclude somebody from projects of this kind as unacceptable--especially to launch such projects out of considerations other than economic,” the foreign minister said.

Times staff writer Richard C. Paddock in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed to this report.