ABTTF President: ‘Since you implement Lausanne totally, how come you are closing our schools, not those of the state, on grounds of shortage of students?’
With the decision of the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace State Regional Directorate of First and Second Degree Schools dated 30 July 2021, statements from the authorities of our country continue to come in response to the decision to close 12 more primary schools belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace in the 2021-2022 school year.
In its response to our motherland Turkey on 2 August 2021, our country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Greece, unlike Turkey, continues to fully implement the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne, claiming that Turkey has distorted the truth with false news and baseless accusations. While the Ministry states that the ‘Muslim minority in Thrace’ has a population of approximately 120,000 and has more than 100 primary schools in the 2021-2022 school year, on the other hand, it underscored that at the time of the signing of Lausanne, the ‘Greek Orthodox minority in Turkey’, which had an equal population, had only three schools in Istanbul.
With respect to the schools that were closed in Western Thrace, our country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that 24 public primary schools were closed in the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Region, claiming that this is an indication of equal treatment, not discrimination towards the members of the Minority. On the other hand, in an interview with Sputnik Greece, the Secretary General of the Minister of Education of our country, Alexandros Koptsis, stated that in accordance with the relevant legislation, the activities of schools belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace with less than 9 students were suspended, and reiterated that more public schools than minority schools were closed in the region.
Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) made the following statement: ‘In the face of the statements of our country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Education, I would like to make this clear. This schools are our schools, not of the state! I ask the authorities of our country, who say that they fully implement all the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne: Since you implement Lausanne totally, how come you are closing our schools, not those of the state, on grounds of shortage of students? According to the Treaty, those schools are ours and the right to manage and supervise them is also ours! However, we all know that our right to manage our schools has been taken from us by the laws and circulars enacted over the years, and the state applies strict control at every stage in this respect. Our country, which criticizes our motherland on the basis of reciprocity, should also see this: Beyond the principle of reciprocity, our motherland opened a school in Imbros (Gökçeada) with 3 students. On the other hand, the number of schools is getting smaller every day. In 1995, we had 231 primary schools. Until 2011, with different applications, and after 2011, the number of our schools decreased as the number of students decreased within the scope of economic measures, and with this new decision, the total number of primary schools remaining is 103. At this point, one should also see this. The Turkish community in Rhodes and Kos also had their own schools in the past, whereas today there is not a single Turkish primary school on the islands! As such, we cannot help but ask whether the long-term aim is to make us look like Rhodes and Kos. We demand that our educational autonomy to be restored within the special status and rights we have!’
