Veteran but also controversial politician, a former Foreign Minister and a historic member of socialist PASOK, Theodoros Pangalos passed away at the age of 84.
His death was announced by his family in a post on social media.
Theodoros Pangalos was born in Eleusis, western Attica and he was the grandson of General and 1926 dictator Theodoros Pangalos.
Ηe was first member of left-wing Lambrakis Youth. an MP candidate with the United Democratic Left (EDA).
He opposed the 1967 military dictatorship, and was deprived by the junta of his Greek citizenship in 1968.
Pangalos became a member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), rising to its Central Committee, before eventually joining the PASOK socialist party during the Metapolitefsi. He was elected for the first time as an MP in the 1981 general election with PASOK and has been continuously re-elected since until 2012.
In 1996 he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs by PM Costas Smimits and held the post until his resignation in 1999, in the aftermath of the scandal involving the leader of Kurdish PKK, recognized as a terrorist organization by EU, Abdullah Öcalan: helped by individual members of the Greek intelligence agencies Öcalan entered Greece illegally and was then deported to Kenya, where he was captured by Turkish agents after leaving the Greek embassy at Nairobi.
The smart politician was also known for his provocative statements.
Pangalos came under fire when he said in 2018 on a radio show “The only good Turk is a dead Turk. I believe this because I have not come across a good Turk. They lack basic appreciation.”
Pangalos was briefly made Minister for Culture in 2000, an appointment which was widely criticized, in view of his previous statement that artists who had protested his handling of the Öcalan affair were kuradomanges (Greek: κουραδόμαγκες) (turd tough guys).
He remains in Greeks’ mind as Mister “mazi ta fagame” – we ate them together – in the sense that all Greeks were responsible for Greece’s debt.
He made this statement right after then PM Giorgos Papandreou announced the first bailout thus provoking and insulting citizens who had not profited during the long PASOK governance.
In the last years Theodoros Pangalos he had withdrawn form public life, facing health and economic problems.
with CV info from wikipedia
