ABTTF President: “Our country’s diplomacy still believes that it can manipulate the facts to convince the international community, that it can impose only the reality it believes in. However, all these efforts are futile. Indeed, now the whole world knows about the presence of Turks in Western Thrace and the Dodecanese Islands’’.
The article published on the news site Newsfire.gr referred to the letter dated 1 August 2025 sent by Türkiye to the United Nations (UN) Security Council protesting Greece’s violation of the rights of Turks in Western Thrace and the Dodecanese Islands and its disregard for European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments.
The article noted that Greece rejected the claims made in Türkiye’s letter, noting that the minority in (Western) Thrace has the status of a ‘‘religious minority’’ under the Treaty of Lausanne and that all their rights are guaranteed under the Constitution and international law.
The letter submitted to the UN Security Council, signed by the Permanent Representative to the UN of Türkiye Ambassador Ahmet Yıldız, indicated that Greece had persistently failed to execute the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments against it concerning the associations of the Turkish community in Western Thrace for nearly 20 years, that the Turkish community had been deprived of its right to elect its own religious leaders due to systematic political discrimination, that Greek authorities have rejected requests to establish special bilingual (Greek-Turkish) kindergartens for Turkish children, and that Greece deliberately fails to meet the most basic needs of the Turkish minority living on the islands of Rhodes and Kos, such as Turkish-language education and places of worship.
‘‘Our country’s diplomacy still believes that it can manipulate the facts to convince the international community and impose only the reality it believes in. However, all these efforts are futile. Indeed, now the whole world knows about the presence of Turks in Western Thrace and the Dodecanese Islands. Our Turkish identity is also clearly stated in our country’s official documents from the past. Our motherland has done what is natural by bringing the human rights violations and discrimination we have suffered to the attention of the international community and standing up for us. There is no need for our country to be ashamed of this situation. Our country, which proclaims at every opportunity that it is the cradle of democracy, must show full respect for our rights guaranteed by international and bilateral agreements and immediately end its policy of denying our Turkish identity’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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