ATHENS – Historic member of PASOK and passionate advocate of the recognition of Pontian Greek genocide Michalis Charalambidis died on Wednesday aged 73.

Charalambidis, who studied political and economic sciences with a master’s in sociology, was one of the seven who co-signed the founding charter of PASOK with Andreas Papandreou in Munich in August 1974, while he also served as member of the party’s Central Committee as of 1977.

He left PASOK in 1999 and founded the group “Dimokratiki Periferiaki Enosi (Democratic Regional Union), which ran in the 2000 national elections. In 1994, the Greek parliament adopted his proposal for the recognition of May 19 as Day of Remembrance of the Pontian Genocide.

Chalambidis also served as a member of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples’ Executive Committee, and was a researcher at the Foundation for Mediterranean Studies.

Greek Solution party president Kyriakos Velopoulos called him “a true patriot, an uncompromising fighter” and said he should stand as insporation for every Greek. “His political astuteness – since he was the first to envision the Burgas-Alexandroupolis natural gas pipeline of national importance – proves that defending national interests ‘breaks down party barriers,” Velopoulos said.