ABTTF President: “Starting in 1983, in line with the policy of denial by our country of the Turkish identity of the Turkish community in Western Thrace, first the Xanthi Turkish Union and then one by one our associations bearing the word ‘Turkish’ were closed down. We ask our country to comply with its obligations arising from international treaties and to immediately execute the ECtHR judgments regarding our associations.”
Despite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in favour of the application for the reinstatement of the official legal entity of the Xanthi Turkish Union (XTU), the oldest association of the Turkish community in Western Thrace, the rejection by the Greek Court of Cassation (Areios Pagos) and the protest march organised by XTU on 10 July 2021 were covered in detail in the Greek press.
The Inkomotini.news news portal included the comments of KINAL MP Ilhan Ahmet from Rodopi on 12 July 2021. Noting that the legal issue related to associations belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace has been ongoing in the courts since 1983, Ahmet noted that there are ECtHR judgments that justify the request to reopen them as long as they do not harm public order. Ahmet indicated that the Turkish community in Western Thrace has been a scapegoat in turbulent Turkish-Greek relations many times over the past hundred years, and further stressed that Western Thrace should be referred to as a region dominated by a liberal and humanist democracy rather than fanaticism and intolerant rhetoric, and that it should further be highlighted as an exemplary region in terms of human and minority rights.
“As our MP Ilhan Ahmet indicated it, the Xanthi Turkish Union has played a very important role in the peaceful coexistence of people of different religions and cultures in Western Thrace since its establishment. However, by 1983, the most difficult days for the Turkish community in Western Thrace had begun, and in line with our country’s policy of denial of our Turkish identity, first the Xanthi Turkish Union and then one by one our associations bearing the word ‘Turkish’ were closed down. Since then, our country has started to see us as a threat and a danger. Some circles have been consistently portraying us as if we were spies of our motherland Turkey who are fighting for the rights of the Turkish community in Western Thrace. The Greek MPs from our region also seek political profit, branding us fascists and making us enemies of society. We have seen the latest example of this in the unfounded and unsupported accusations of MP Evripidis Stylianidis from Rodopi targeting ABTTF at the end of February. The efforts of these circles to manipulate the European Union and the Council of Europe, of which our country is a member, with lies that they believe only are futile because the facts are clear with the ECtHR judgments. We only demand our freedom of association to be respected and the ECtHR judgments regarding our associations like the Xanthi Turkish Union to be executed immediately by our country”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
