ABTTF President: “We call on our country Greece to renounce to turn its back to realities and to recognise our ethnic Turkish identity and to find solutions to our problems through a dialogue with us.”
In a speech he made at an online event at the occasion of the Orthodox Christmas event organised by the Association of the Inhabitants of Gökçeada (Imbros), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Nikos Dendias called on Turkey to fully respect the rights of the Greek Orthodox minority in İstanbul, Gökçeada and Bozcaada (Tenedos) and added that this is an international obligation on the part of Turkey according to the Treaty of Lausanne.
Furthermore, Dendias expressed that the Greek Orthodox minority in İstanbul, Gökçeada and Bozcaada in Turkey is not an enemy of the remainder of the Turkish society and that on the contrary it constitutes a reference point for the two people to live in peace and friendship in that respect. Calling on Turkey to find solutions which would create opportunities for the Christians and Muslims to live in harmony in Gökçeada and Bozcaada and also reminding of the decision of 27.06.2008 taken by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Dendias alleged that the Association of the Inhabitants of Gökçeada has been trying to voice the pressure and injustices that the Turkish authorities have been inflicting to the Orthodox Greeks in Gökçeada for years.
In his response to the statements of Dendias towards the Greek Orthodox minority in Turkey, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Hami Aksoy said that the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs should first look to himself on the mirror and clean up his own house before making such grave statements. Aksoy further underlined that Greece has been consistently violating the rights of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace which takes its source in by the Treaty of Lausanne and multilateral agreements and called upon Greece to look into the constructive steps taken by Turkey regarding its own minorities.
“We read with amazement the statements of our country Greece’s Foreign Minister as if he were teaching our motherland about minority rights by ignoring the discrimination and rights violations suffered by the Turkish community in Western Thrace. Our country, which denies our ethnic Turkish identity, has been convicted three times by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) but has not implemented these judgments for more than 12 years. Our country, which has usurped our education and religious autonomy guaranteed by treaties, does not recognise the muftis we have elected and continues to close Turkish minority primary schools in Western Thrace every year. As the latest example of our country’s assimilation policy towards the Turkish community in Western Thrace, the signboards of our autonomous madrasahs in Komotini and Xanthi have been replaced with fait accompli and the phrase ‘Minority’ has been deleted from the signboards. We call on our country Greece to renounce to turn its back to realities and to recognise our ethnic Turkish identity and to find solutions to our problems through a dialogue with us”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
