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Batı Trakya

WESTERN THRACE

Rodopi MP Haritou alleged that Turkey is instrumentalising the issue of the Turkish community in Western Thrace

21.04.2021

ABTTF President: “Just as our country indicates the demands of the Greek Orthodox minority in our motherland, our motherland, which is signatory to the Treaty of Lausanne raises the problems we are experiencing. There is nothing wrong with that or to be afraid of it.”

In a statement he delivered with respect to the meeting between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Nikos Dendias and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu which took place in Ankara on 15 April 2021, SYRIZA MP Dimitris Haritou from Rodopi said that the Turkish community in Western Thrace is an internal issue of Greece. 

Haritou stated that only Greece can decide which policies to follow regarding the Turkish community in Western Thrace and that his country will never accept intervention or dictation from Turkey, suggesting that Turkey is using the issue of the Turkish community in Western Thrace as a tool.

“MP Haritou says the Turkish community in Western Thrace is an internal issue of our country. Then I’d like to ask him this: If we are an internal issue of our country, how does Haritou explain the presence of the Office for Political Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Western Thrace? Just as our country indicates the demands of the Greek Orthodox minority in our motherland, our motherland, which is signatory to the Treaty of Lausanne raises the problems we are experiencing. There is nothing wrong with that or to be afraid of it”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).