The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), as a full member of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), participated in the 7th Annual Meeting of the Education Working Group held in the city of Komotini in the Western Thrace region of Greece on 10-13 November 2025.
ABTTF International Relations Director Melek Kırmacı participated in the meeting, which was attended by teachers, educators, researchers and academics from different European countries and focused on the theme of ‘‘Minority Schooling Systems, Turkish Minority Education in Greece, Minority History Teaching’’.
FUEN President Olivia Schubert participated in the meeting via video conference and delivered a welcoming speech. Subsequently, FUEN Education Working Group Coordinator Zora Popova and Thomas Hieber, lawyer and legal expert for FUEN’s European Citizens’ Initiative entitled ‘‘Minority Safepack Package (MSPI)’’, delivered introductory presentations on minority rights in education.
In its presentation during the panel session titled ‘‘Minority Schooling Systems in Europe’’, ABTTF addressed the status of the Turkish community in Western Thrace in education and the problems it faces in this area.
Emphasising that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne guaranteed the Turkish community in Western Thrace autonomy in education and education in their mother tongue, Turkish, ABTTF noted that Turkish schools in the Western Thrace region are ‘‘autonomous’’ and therefore have ‘‘private school’’ status and belong to the Turkish community.
ABTTF indicated that this autonomous structure has been largely dismantled to this day as a result of laws, regulations and other legislation, as well as arbitrary practices by the state, and that schools belonging to the Turkish community have been turned into schools managed under state supervision and control, because the real aim is to eliminate the Turkish school system in the long term.
Noting that there is not a single Turkish kindergarten in Western Thrace and that children belonging to the Turkish community are forced to attend public kindergartens that provide education only in Greek, ABTTF recorded that private and autonomous Turkish primary schools have been closed under the pretext of low number of pupils, and that while there were 194 Turkish primary schools in Western Thrace in 2008, today there are only 83.
ABTTF pointed out that although Western Thrace Turks constitute the majority of the population in the prefecture of Rodopi and nearly half of the population in the prefecture of Xanthi, there is only one Turkish middle school and one Turkish high school in each prefecture. In contrast, there are 14 public middle schools and 9 public high schools in Rodopi, and 20 public secondary schools and 9 public high schools in Xanthi.
ABTTF called on Greece to restore the educational autonomy of the Turkish community in Western Thrace, which was guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne but has been largely dismantled today by legal regulations and arbitrary practices.
At the panel session titled ‘‘Fundamental educational problems of the Turkish ethnic group in Greece’’ during the meeting, Prof. Dr. Fırat Yaldız, a member of the Rhodes, Kos and the Dodecanese Turks Culture and Solidarity Association (ROISDER), Aydın Ahmet, President of the Western Thrace Turkish Teachers’ Union (BTTÖB), and Attorney Ahmet Kara, former President of the Western Thrace Minority Schools Board realised their presentations on the educational issues of the Western Thrace Turks and Rhodes and Kos Turks. Moreover, Ozan Ahmetoğlu, President of the School Board of the Xanthi Turkish Secondary and High School, realised a presentation at a panel session titled ‘‘Minority Education at Secondary and Upper Secondary Levels’’.
