Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou expressed his regret for the episodes against the Yugoslav national team which took palce in Athens during the final game of the Eurobasket Championship between the national teams of Yugoslavia and Lithuania that was held in Athens.

Mr.Papandreou said that a few greek fans blackened Greece's image as host country and added that the greek people condemn those incidents that do not represend its positions and feelings. Ex-prime minister and now honorary president of the main opposition party of New Democracy mr Constantinos Mitsotakis stressed that the traditional friendship ties between Greece and Serbia should not be threatened due to such episodes and accused the sports vice minister mr Giorgos Lianis of not taking action to calm down the episodes.

Mr Lianis condemned strongly the behaviour of the greek basketball fans during the yugoslav national anthem after the final game of the Eurobasket Championship Games.

Mr.Lianis made a public apology for the incidents stating that it was a behaviour that got out of control while he reiterated that the serbs and the greeks are brothers as they always were, adding that the complications in the greek-serb relations are exploited by other countries.

Meanwhile, mr.Lianis, together with serb coach mr Ducan Bajevic who has already got greek citizenship after living here for five years will make an official visit to Belgrade by the end of the week aiming at the restoration of the greek-serb relations. Greek press and media minister mr Evangelos Venizelos expressed the government's strong condemnation of the incidents and said that the greek government wants to condemn with the most formal and categorical way the unacceptable incidents that took place during and afetr the final match of the Eurobasket.

Mr Venizelos expressed the greek government's deep regret for those incidents stressing that they do not express the real feelings of the greek people. Mr.Venizelos said that phenomena of this kind are of a pathological nature and fortunately are momentary.

The minister said that he hoped the incidents against the greek embassy in Belgrade should be dealt in the same way by the Yugoslav abd serb authorities.