ABTTF President: “We witnessed that our Prime Minister, who did not meet with the elected representatives of our community during his visit to Komotini, once again ignored our issues by pursuing the official policy of state denial of our community’’.
Our country Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Komotini on 8 July 2022. Mitsotakis, who came to Komotini to inaugurate the IGB natural gas pipeline between Greece and Bulgaria, met in the garden of the mufti with appointed mufti regents and appointed foundation administration board members, whom the Turkish community in Western Thrace does not recognise, at the occasion of his visit in the city centre.
During his visit to Komotini city centre, Mitsotakis stated that (Western) Thrace is changing faster than the rest of Greece and indicated that it was his father Konstantinos Mitsotakis who actually brought equality before the law in (Western) Thrace, and that he never wanted to forget this. Mitsotakis further noted that all of (Western) Thrace is an example of Christians and Muslims living in harmony.
“As in the previous visit of our country’s Prime Minister Mitsotakis to our region in February 2020, we, as the Turkish community in Western Thrace, which constitutes the majority in the province of Rodopi, have been ignored again! We witnessed that our Prime Minister, who did not meet with the elected representatives of our community during his visit to Komotini, once again ignored our issues by continuing the official policy of state denial of our community. As Western Thrace Turks, we have been exposed to discrimination in our socio-economic activities for years. We have experienced concrete examples of this in the last period with the exclusion of the Turkish community in Western Thrace minority press and tobacco producers from the Covid-19 aid. On the other hand, our country, which has restricted even our freedom of expression and closed down our associations called bearing the word ‘Turkish’, has not executed the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in this regard for 14 years, thus ignoring international law. As the Turkish community in Western Thrace, we do not want to hear empty words anymore, we call on our Prime Minister to take immediate steps towards the real implementation of equality before the law in our region and the development of our region”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
*Image: www.birlikgazetesi.org
