Secretary of State Colin Powell, citing urgent business at home, has canceled his visit to Athens for the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, the State Department announced Saturday.
An aide to the secretary said Powell did not want to encourage anti-American demonstrations that would distract from the ceremony.
The announcement came after a demonstration in Athens on Friday involving 2,000 people protesting the planned visit disintegrated into a rock-throwing melee. At least three people were injured, and the police fired tear gas to break up the crowds.
The State Department said Powell called Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis of Greece on Friday to say he had urgent business to attend to in Washington, but no particular issue was cited. Powell told the foreign minister that he would visit Greece in October.
Powell “expressed his congratulations to the government and people of Greece for hosting a spectacular, safe and successful Olympics,” the State Department said.
A State Department official, speaking on condition that he not be identified, said Powell was not concerned about security or bad publicity but that he “didn’t want anything untoward and did not want the complications of any visit to distract from the end of a very successful Olympics.”
Powell had been scheduled to leave for Athens on Saturday. He was to take part in closing ceremonies Sunday and return the next day.
The secretary’s visit to Athens also would have coincided with the opening day of the Republican National Convention in New York, but an aide to the secretary said that was not a factor in Powell’s decision to cancel.
Powell has said he will not attend the Republican convention because of what aides said is a tradition that foreign policy and national security officials not participate in partisan political events.
The anti-American demonstrations Friday were the first such disturbances to occur during the Olympics. Greek authorities have been assisted by army, navy and air force contingents from NATO to guard against terrorist attacks.
