ABTTF President: “Although Minister of Foreign Affairs Dendias claims that our country respects the rights of the Turkish community in Western Thrace, our country, which has not executed the European Court of Human Rights judgment with respect to the Xanthi Turkish Union for the past 14 years, which was banned because of the word ‘Turkish’ in its name, continues to disregard the principles of democracy and the rule of law. How long can our country continue its policy of covering up the facts? True facts will eventually be revealed.’’
In his statement referring to the Turkish community in Western Thrace, our country Greece’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias argued that Greece is a European country that absolutely respects human rights and, of course, the rights of the Muslim minority, and asserted that the Muslim minority in Greece is growing, enlarging and living well.
On the other hand, in his article published in the daily Kathimerini dated 18.09.2022, academician, political scientist and historian George Mavrogordatos stated that the minority in Western Thrace is the Turkish minority. Mavrogordatos stated that the discourse of ‘‘there are no Turks in Greece’’ has been repeated in recent years and that only the definition of a ‘‘Minority’’ has been used, noting that in reality, of course, there are Turks in Greece, and that this fact is also confirmed by the 1923 Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations.
“Our country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dendias continued his habit of covering up the facts and again denied the Turkish identity of the Turkish community in Western Thrace. Although Dendias claims that our country respects the rights of our community, our country, which has not executed the European Court of Human Rights judgment with respect to the Xanthi Turkish Union for the past 14 years, which was banned because of the word ‘Turkish’ in its name, continues to disregard the principles of democracy and the rule of law. Our country, which does not allow us to define ourselves as ‘Turks’, on the other hand, allows an association with the name ‘Armenian’ and which refers to the ethnicity established by Armenians in Komotini. How long can our country continue its policy of covering up the facts? True facts will eventually be revealed. The United Nations archive is full of documents showing how weak our country’s human and minority rights record is, which is not at all befitting of our country which is an old member of the European Union”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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