John Koenig at the Dukakis Center

John Koenig, former US Ambassador to Cyprus, visited ACT and the Dukakis Center last week to deliver a Dukakis Lecture, and to visit with various constituencies at the College.

The highlight of Ambassador Koenig's visit was a Dukakis Lecture entitled "The Cyprus end-game: Unification or permanent partition?" The event was co-hosted by the Navarino Network, and took place at the Daios Hotel, on the site of the old US Consulate General. 

The Dukakis Center has had a longstanding interest in the Cyprus question going back to 2002. Guest speakers have included Van Coufoudakis (twice) and Alvaro de Soto, the latter in his capacity as Special Representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for Cyprus. The timing of Ambassador Koenig’s lecture was meant to coincide with the current phase of bi-communal talks on the island, in which he had played an active role as mediator.

Ambassador Koenig, who spent three years as Consul General of Thessaloniki in the early 2000s, is an Honorary Advisor of the Dukakis Center, and met with ACT Provost Karamouzis and Executive Director Wisner as follow up to the Advisory Board meeting of November 2016. During his visit he also met separately with ACT students for an informal discussion on multilateral diplomacy, and was the guest of honor at a reception at Nelson in Panorama. (He had previously participated in a round table discusion on the 2000 US Presidential election, and, more recently, in an event dedicated to the 2016 Democratic primaries.)

Ambassador Koenig was accompanied in his visit by his Greek-American wife, Natalie.