ABTTF President: “Bakoyannis continues to use us as the tool of her party’s election campaign by targeting our community again and making baseless accusations. The statements of Bakoyannis and other high-level politicians of our country that marginalise our community and disregard its free will also seriously damage the international reputation and prestige of our country, which claims to be the cradle of democracy.”
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of our country Greece and Chair of the Commission for the Development of Thrace Dora Bakoyannis claimed that a foreign power cannot use the Turkish community in Western Thrace as a tool just for its own interests, in an interview with the news portal parapolitika.gr on 19 June 2023.
In her interview, Bakoyannis indicated that as New Democracy (ND), they want a minority that will flourish, develop, live in harmony in (Western) Thrace and take a share in the development and welfare of the region, Bakoyannis further indicated that the final report of the Commission for the Development of Thrace of the new government is based on education, culture, institutional changes and stated that it should continue to be implemented in practice at the level of development.
“Dora Bakoyannis, one of the important figures of ND, continues to use us as a tool of her party’s election campaign, by targeting the Turkish community in Western Thrace again and making baseless accusations to gather votes. During her recent visit to a Turkish village in the prefecture of Rodopi, Bakoyannis implicitly threatened our community by indicating that the conditions would become more difficult if the members of our community did not vote for them and tried to put a mortgage on the free will of our community before the general elections. Therefore, they are the ones who use us as tools for their political interests! In our country, we are exposed to the discourse of marginalisation and stigmatisation in the political arena in a way that has never been experienced before a general election. The dose of this rhetoric targeting our community has increased even more as the general elections on 25 June are approaching. The statements of Bakoyannis and other high-level politicians of our country that marginalise our community and disregard its free will seriously damage the international reputation and prestige of our country, which claims to be the cradle of democracy’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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