ABTTF President: “Tsihlis, who is a lawyer, knows very well that the Treaty of Lausanne contains only and exclusively the term ‘non-Muslim minorities’. If Tsihlis says that the minority in Istanbul is a Greek minority, he should also say that we that are living in Western Thrace are a Turkish minority. Otherwise, he does not respect the principles of his profession as a lawyer.”
Lawyer, constitutional expert and associate of the Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Athens, Christos Il. Tsihlis, referred to the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty and the Turkish community in Western Thrace in his article on the flynews.gr news website.
In his article, Tsihlis claimed that according to the Treaty of Lausanne, the minority in Western Thrace is a religious minority, while the minority in Istanbul is an ethnic minority, that is, the Greek minority, and that Turkey violates the rights of the minority.
“In his article, Christos Il. Tsihlis claims that there is a Muslim minority in Western Thrace and an ethnic Greek minority in Istanbul. Tsihlis, who is a lawyer, knows very well that the Treaty of Lausanne contains only and exclusively the term ‘non-Muslim minorities’. If Tsihlis says that the minority in Istanbul is a Greek minority, he should also say that we that are living in Western Thrace are a Turkish minority. Otherwise, he does not respect the principles of his profession as a lawyer”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
