ABTTF President: “Our country, which claims that only Greeks or Greek Muslims live in Western Thrace, denies the existence of the Turkish community in Western Thrace living in these lands for centuries and our Turkish identity; and defines us as Greek Muslims.”
Georgios Papahristos, one of the famous writers and journalists of our country Greece, made a statement in a programme he participated in on Alert TV about the ongoing discussions on the Aegean Sea.
He said that the Aegean is not a Greek lake and stated that, in accordance with the principle of equity, the west of the Aegean Sea belongs to Greece and the east belongs to Türkiye of which 500 km coastline is washed by the same sea. “As long as we believe that the Aegean belongs to us, we cannot have good neighborly relations”, said Papahristos.
Citing the proximity of the island of Pharmakonisi (Bulamaç) to Türkiye, Papahristos noted that Greece’s claims to extend its territorial waters to 12 miles in the Aegean Sea were an absurd dream, and said that Greece’s neighbors also have a right and Greece must accept this now.
Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe(ABTTF), made the following statement: “The statement of Georgios Papahristos, who criticises the well-known traditional theses of our country and offers a different perspective, are extremely remarkable. Our country, which always has a unilateral and biased perspective on incidents and issues, has the same wrong perspective for Western Thrace. Our country, which claims that only Greeks or Greek Muslims live in Western Thrace, denies the existence of the Turkish community in Western Thrace living in those territories for centuries and our Turkish identity, and it defines us as Greek Muslims. As Papahristos emphasised, our country must immediately abandon distorted perspective which only it is convinced and its uncompromising attitude. Thus, a constructive dialogue based on facts would be paved between our country and our motherland, and this constructive approach that our country will adopt will have positive reflections on the solution of our community’s issues”.
