ABTTF President: “Kefalogiannis pursued his habit of deliberately distorting the facts by interpreting the Treaty of Lausanne in a biased way in the articles he wrote, as well as in the written question he submitted to the European Commission.”
Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Manolis Kefalogiannis (EPP-Christian Democrats) has again denied the Turkish identity of the Turkish community in Western Thrace. In articles published in The President news portal and the newspaper Paron, Kefalogiannis argued that in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the minority in Istanbul is defined as the ‘‘Greek national minority’’ and in (Western) Thrace as the ‘‘religious Muslim minority’’.
Kefalogiannis made the same allegations in a written question to the European Commission in July 2022. In response, the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), which has a representative office in Brussels, sent a letter to EU circles about the written question of Kefalogiannis and indicated that the statements about the Turkish community in Western Thrace in the relevant written question did not reflect the truth.
“Our country’s MEP Kefalogiannis pursued his habit of deliberately distorting the facts by interpreting the Treaty of Lausanne in a biased way in the articles he wrote, as well as in the written question he submitted to the European Commission. As Kefalogiannis is well aware, the Treaty of Lausanne only mentions ‘‘non-Muslim minorities’’. Therefore, Kefalogiannis, who says that the minority in Istanbul is a Greek minority, needs to say that we whom are living in Western Thrace are also a Turkish minority. Kefalogiannis has once again turned a blind eye to the truth by becoming the spokesperson of our country’s official policy of rejection of our Turkish identity”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of ABTTF.
*Image: www.anadoluimages.com
