ABTTF on a working visit in Brussels

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) paid a working visit to the European Parliament (EP) on 2 December 2015 in Brussels. Accompanied by the ABTTF Brussels Office, ABTTF President Halit Habip Oğlu and ABTTF Vice-Presidents Sami Yusuf and Mustafa Kasap met with the MEPs Jordi Sebastià and Ernest Maragall (The Greens/European Free Alliance) who both are Catalans from Spain, Nedzhmi Ali (ALDE) who belongs to the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, Iskra Mihaylova (ALDE) from Bulgaria and Csaba Sógor (EPP-Christian Democrats) who belong to the Hungarian minority in Romania.

MEPs provided with information on the problems of and current issues of concern to the Turkish minority of Western Thrace in Greece

The ABTTF delegation first met with the Co-Chair of the Intergroup for Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages in the EP Jordi Sebastià and Ernest Maragall. ABTTF President Habip Oğlu underlined the Turkish minority of Western Thrace has been granted educational and religious autonomy by the 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne and said the Greek government violates the right of the minority to education in mother tongue by declining the opening of bilingual minority kindergartens in Western Thrace.

During the meeting with Nedzhmi Ali who is a member of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the political party of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, ABTTF President Habip Oğlu explained the current problems, in particular with regard to the education, of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace and the discriminative practices it is exposed to, and requested his support on theses issues in the EP. Ali expressed his support for the cause of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace and invited Habip Oğlu to the MRF’s General Assembly to be held in April 2016 in Bulgaria.

During the meeting with Iskra Mihaylova, Chairperson of the Committee on Regional Development, ABTTF President Habip Oğlu said although Western Thrace is one of the most economically underdeveloped regions of Greece, the Turkish minority municipalities there cannot sufficiently benefit from the regional and rural development funds of the European Union.

The ABTTF delegation lastly met with Csaba Sógor, member of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in his office. ABTTF President Habip Oğlu underlined the serious problems the Turkish minority of Western Thrace has been facing in the field of freedom of association and expressed the three judgments delivered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2007 and 2008 with regard to the Turkish Union of Xanthi, the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Region of Rodopi and the Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association have still not been implemented by Greece.