ABTTF President: “Is our country closing our schools due to the low number of students in the Turkish primary schools in our region based on the implementation throughout Greece, or is it abusing the principle of reciprocity and looking for an excuse to close our primary schools in our region due to the low number of primary schools of the Orthodox Greek community in Türkiye?”
Our country Greece’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Alexandros Papaioannou indicated that he completely rejected Türkiye’s statement by accusing Ankara of reversing the truth in his statement regarding to the response of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated 22 July 2022 with respect to the closure of 4 primary schools belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace in the 2022-2023 school year.
In its statement on 22 July, Türkiye condemned the decision to close 4 primary schools in Western Thrace and stated that the policy implemented by Greece to close the primary schools belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace through a ‘‘temporary suspension’’ has been systematised. Papaioannou, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that in addition to the 4 Turkish primary schools closed in Western Thrace, the decision was taken to close 29 public primary schools in the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. Papaioannou noted that the decision to suspend the activities of the schools was made with exactly the same criteria throughout Greece, i.e. when the number of students fell below the minimum threshold of nine (9) students, and accused Türkiye of making misleading statements and further asserted that Greece was fully ensuring the freedoms and rights of the Turkish community in Western Thrace like all Greek citizens, referred to as the Muslim Minority in Thrace.
Moreover, Papaioannou indicated that there are only 4 primary schools, 3 in Istanbul and 1 in Gökçeada (Imbros), belonging to the Orthodox Greek community in Türkiye, and that this situation is the result of the violent and systematic uprooting of the Greeks from their ancestors’ lands. In contrast, Papaioannou said that in Western Thrace, 99 primary schools will be operational in the next school year.
“The statement made by the Spokesperson of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of our country is quite contradictory. Indeed, Ministry Spokesperson Papaioannou gives the number of public primary schools to be closed in Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace next year, stating that the activities of all primary schools with less than 9 students across Greece have been stopped as a reason for the decision to close 4 more primary schools. On the other hand, Papaioannou ignores the rapid decline in the number of primary schools from 194 to 99 from 2008 to 2022, drawing attention to the fact that there are only 4 primary schools of the Orthodox Greek community in Türkiye, and lays a charge against Türkiye in this respect, claiming that 99 primary schools are operating in our region. At this point, I would like to ask the following to Papaioannou. Is our country closing our schools due to the low number of students in the Turkish primary schools in our region based on the implementation throughout Greece, or is it abusing the principle of reciprocity and looking for an excuse to close our primary schools in our region due to the low number of primary schools of the Orthodox Greek community in Türkiye?”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
