The Greek ambassador in Washington, D.C. is the official representative of the Hellenic Republic Government to the Government of the United States.
History
After the War of Independence, which started in 1821, Greece was declared an independent state but it was not until February 3, 1830 that the Independence was recognized by the Great Powers with the signing of the Protocol of London. On May 7, 1832 Otto of Greece arrived in Nafplion and Greece became a Kingdom. The United States, however, only recognized the Greek state in 1833. In December 1837 a commercial treaty was signed, which regulated trade between the two countries. The first Greek consulate to be established was New Orleans in 1866 with Nicolas Benachi as the first Greek consul there. In 1867, Demetrios Nicholas Botassis was named Consul General of Greece in New York City.
Ambassadors
List of Chiefs of protocol:
- September 21, 1917
- October 25, 1920 Georgios Drakopoulos, in charge of Legation
- December 15, 1920 Georgios Drakopoulos Charge dâÂÂAffaires a.i.
- January 11, 1923 , Charge dâÂÂAffaires a.i.
- May 22, 1924 , Charge d'Affaires a.i.
- June 30, 1924 Vasilios Mammonos, Charge d'Affaires a.i.
- August 21, 1924 Konstantinos D. Xanthopoulos, Charge dâÂÂAffaires a.i.
- December 12, 1924 Charalambos Simopoulos
- April 26, 1935 Dimitrios Sikelianos
- February 7, 1940
Legation raised to Embassy
- October 6, 1942
- December 6, 1946 Pavlos Oikonomou-Gouras, Charge d'Affaires a.i.
- June 3, 1947
- December 8, 1954 Athanase George Politis
- October 6, 1958
- February 13, 1962 Alexandros Matsas
- September 20, 1967
- November 13, 1969 Basil Vitsaksis
- December 1, 1972 Ioannis Argyrios Sorokos
- February 27, 1974
- September 3, 1974
- August 16, 1979 , Charge dâÂÂAffaires ad interim
- September 4, 1979
- December 15, 1981 Georgios Sioris, Charge dâÂÂAffaires ad interim
- January 13, 1982 Nikolaos Karandreas
- September 10, 1983 Georgios Sioris, Charge d'Affaires ad interim
- September 19, 1983 Georgios Papoulias
- September 21, 1989
- June 15, 1993
- July 6, 1998 Alexander Philon
- July 2, 2002 Georgios Savvaidis
- October 3, 2005 Alexandros Mallias
- July 20, 2009 Vassilis Kaskarelis
- September 19, 2012 Christos Panagopoulos
- June 2016 Haris Lalacos
- February 2020 Alexandra Papadopoulou
See also
References