was supportive of any step towards détente, peace, and disarmament e.g. the "Initiative of the Six" for peace and disarmament, the participation of Greece in the Conference on Disarmament and Peace in Europe and in the Conference for the Abolition of Chemical Weapons, his proposals to create a nuclear-free zone in the Balkans and the promotion of the idea of making the Mediterranean a sea of peace and cooperation. The JANNINA 1 tripartite cooperation conference, between Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania, was his idea and he was a strong supporter of the Black Sea Conference, which he also chaired. With his visit to Washington, D.C. in 1985 and the return visit of Secretary of State George Shultz, he revitalized Greek-U.S. relations which had gone through a delicate phase during the previous years. Presidency First term: 2005–2010 On 12 December 2004, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis, leader of the governing New Democracy party, and George Papandreou, leader of the PASOK opposition, nominated Papoulias for the presidency. That same day Karamanlis made it public in a televised message. In fact, he had already communicated this decision to Papoulias in a phone call on 5 December, as he had been discussing his candidacy with him since the summer. Papoulias won over the other four candidates that PASOK and ND had been negotiating. On 8 February 2005, he was elected by 279 of 300 votes to a five-year term. He was sworn in as the 6th President of the Third Hellenic Republic on 12 March 2005, succeeding Konstantinos Stephanopoulos. In December 2008, the police killing of a 15-year-old protester, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, sparked four days of riots in Athens. Papoulias called for calm to "honor Alexis' memory peacefully". At the inauguration of the Acropolis Museum on 20 June 2009, Papoulias demanded the return of the Elgin Marbles from the United Kingdom, which were torn from the Parthenon by the British, because "it is time to heal the wounds of the monument with the return of the marbles that belong to it". Second term: 2010–2015 After securing the support of the two major political parties, Papoulias was re-elected to a second and final term on 3 February 2010 with a parliamentary majority of 266 votes. His second term in office was mired in the country's worsening financial crisis and large demonstrations and protests. This resulted in successive changes of government of different political orientations, with the appointment of