Greece’s new Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday appointed Antonis H. Diamataris, the publisher-editor of The National Herald as the Deputy Minister for Expatriate Greeks.

Since 1979, Diamataris is the publisher-editor of the Ethnikos Kyrix – the oldest Greek-language newspaper in the United States – and later its sister publication, The National Herald. He lives with his family in New York.

This was a personal choice of Kyriakos Mitsotakis and aims at the tightening the bonds of the Greek expatriates and the Greek lobby in the U.S. with the government in Greece.

Antonis Diamataris is to serve under Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias and along Alternate Minister for European affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis and Deputy Minister for economic diplomacy and extroversion Kostas Fragogiannis.

 Antonis H. Diamataris Born in 1950 in the village of Thanos on Lemnos island, he emigrated to New York in 1968. He completed his MBA studies at Columbia University. In 1979 Diamataris bought 100 percent of Ethnikos Kyrix and in 1982 the newspaper moved to privately owned facilities in Long Island City.

In 1997 he published the weekly The National Herald, an English language newspaper. In 2004, The National Herald went online. In 2007 Diamataris was honored by the Hellenic Republic with the Order of the Phoenix from the Hellenic Greek Republic. In 2015 he was honored by U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House for the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Ethnikos Kyrix.

In 2016, the first street sign to feature Greek lettering appeared in Queens. Specifically, the block of 30th Street between 37th and 38th avenues was named “Εθνικός Κύρηξ – National Herald Way,” in honor of the century-old Greek newspaper and its headquarters on 30th Street in Astoria.

Greek Reporter