ABTTF President: “Everyone now knows that the claim by Stylianidis that the rights of our community are fully respected is not in accordance with the facts. Indeed, in our country, our Turkish identity is denied, our freedom of association is violated, our religious leaders elected by our community are not recognised by the government, our autonomous primary schools are closed even though we constitute the majority in prefecture of Rodopi and nearly half of the population in the prefecture of Xanthi, and our demand for bilingual minority kindergartens has been ignored for years.”
New Democracy Party (ND) Rodopi MP Evripidis Stylianidis, who participated as a speaker at the 6th Investment Forum held in Athens on October 3-4, 2023, in order to attract foreign investments to our country Greece, presented the economic development framework contained in the final report prepared by the inter-party Commission for the Development of Thrace.
Expressing the comparative advantages of the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace compared to other regions at the forum, which was held with the participation of authorised ministers, government economic staff and large companies that have invested or plan to invest in the country, Stylianidis claimed that the (Western) Thrace region is a model of an open democratic society that fully respects human and minority rights.
“Stylianidis, a member of Parliament of our region, repeats the claims he has made many times in the past about our community, like the former President of our country, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, and he is the only one who believes what he says. Everyone now knows that the claim by Stylianidis that the rights of our community are fully respected is not in accordance with the facts. Indeed, in our country, our Turkish identity is denied, our freedom of association is violated, our religious leaders elected by our community are not recognised by the government, our autonomous primary schools are closed even though we constitute the majority in prefecture of Rodopi and nearly half of the population in the prefecture of Xanthi, and our demand for bilingual minority kindergartens has been ignored for years. The democratic society model based on equality put forward by Stylianidis is experienced in the South Tyrol region of Italy, the German-Danish border region and Hungary, but unfortunately not in our region! Although it is one of the most underdeveloped regions of Europe in economic terms, Western Thrace awaits new investments with its border region, multicultural structure, and cheap labour advantages”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
*Image: www.anadoluimages.com
