Ambassador Receives Homeric Award

Ambassador Adamantios Th. Vassilakis, Permanent Representative of Greece to the United Nations, received the Chian Federation's 29th Homeric Award at Federation headquarters in Astoria last Friday, November 24. Prior to his current assignment, from 1999, Vassilakis served as Director General for European Affairs and Director of the Centre for Analysis and Planning in the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Those assignments followed his promotion in 1998 to Minister Plenipotentiary (1st class).

Vassilakis, who entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1972 as Embassy Attaché, was appointed Third Secretary of Embassy at the Greek Embassy in Tirana, Albania in 1975. In 1977, he moved to the Foreign Ministry's First Department of Political Affairs, serving as Head of Section for the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe; a member of various Greek delegations visiting Eastern European countries; and as a participant in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Common Market political experts meetings.

In 1985, Vassilakis was made Consul General of Greece in San Francisco, California, where he was promoted to First Counsellor of Embassy and, in 1989 was appointed Head of Section for Bilateral Greek-United States, Iranian, Turkish and Arab Countries, in the Foreign Ministry Department of Bilateral Economic Relations. In 1990, Vassilakis entered the Department of European Community Affairs. In 1991, he was named Deputy Permanent Representative in the Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations, and in 1994 became Chargé d'Affaires, a.i.

Vassilakis is a graduate of the Commercial High School of Chios, Greece, and holds a Licence in Political and Diplomatic Sciences from the Free University of Brussels. Married with two children, he speaks English and French in addition to his native Greek.

The Homeric Award is presented annually to outstanding individuals who have demonstrated an advocacy for human rights, peace and action on Greek, Cypriot issues. This award is one of the most prestigious presented by the Greek American community. The first award was presented in December 1977 to Congressman Benjamin Rosenthal.