Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos renewed the demand for war reparations from Germany owed to Greece from the time when the Nazi forces had occupied the country, during the World War II.
During a visit to the village Kommeno by Arta in Western Greece, Pavlopoulos reiterated the Greek demand.
The country was justified in seeking reparations for damages caused by the Axis forces and for the enforced loan, the Greek President said.
“Our claims are legally effective and judicially enforceable,” he said and noted that “our common European judiciary culture requires that the decision is taken by a competent judicial forum on the basis of the whole of the relevant international law. This position is now literally national and therefore non-negotiable.”
Pavlopoulos spoke at a ceremony to commemorate the brutal murder of 300 local people by the Nazis forces.
Kommeno was the site of a massacre perpetrated by 12 Company of the 98th Regiment, of the German 1. Gebirgs-Division (First Mountain Division), which, on 16 August 1943, executed 317 inhabitants and torched the village.
Germany has repeatedly turned down the Greek calls for reparations claiming that the whole issue was settled with an agreement in 1960.
