ABTTF attended the UN Forum on Minority Issues

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) attended the 10th Session of the UN Forum on Minority Issues organized on 30 November-1 December 2017 at UN House in Ge-neva. The session with the theme “Minority Youth: Towards Diverse and Inclusive Societies” was attended by Melek Kırmacı Arık, ABTTF International Relations Director and Funda Reşit Taştekin, member of ABTTF International Affairs and Lobby Group. At the meeting where ABTTF and Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association (WTMUGA) represented the Turkish community, Western Thrace Turkish representatives conveyed the problems in the minority educa-tion system especially in the field of bilingual minority kindergartens.

ABTTF: Despite the demand by Western Thrace Turkish community the Greek govern-ment refuses to open bilingual kindergartens

Melek Kırmacı Arık, ABTTF International Relations Director, who spoke in the third session on participation of minority youth in public life, stated that the Greek government, with a claim to improve operation of minority schools, has made many interventions in the Turkish education sys-tem with autonomous structure. ABTTF indicated that this causes structural problems in Turkish schools which resulted a low-quality education. Nevertheless, ABTTF expressed that there are no bilingual kindergartens where Turkish children could learn their mother tongue and further noted that despite many applications by Western Thrace Turkish community the Greek government re-jects to open bilingual kindergartens.

ABTTF pointed out that 0.5 % quota in admission to higher education has got a slight impact to due to low quality minority education system and noted that 0.5 % quota provided in the employ-ment in public service is not implemented. ABTTF noted there is a need for a long term pro-gramme for participation of Western Thrace Turkish community youth into public life and labour market.

In its right of reply at the end of the first day, Greece kept its silence about the demand for bilin-gual kindergartens by the Western Thrace Turkish community and rather replied that a pilot pro-ject which provided working of a minority member with command of both languages with the Greek teacher at in pre-schools classes in six state kindergartens in the region. Greece further claimed that that 0.5% quota in the public service is being implemented and it noted that this quo-ta is being implemented in the border police.

Representing the WTMUGAAsst. Professor Ali Hüseyinoğlu and Pervin Hayrullah participated at the meeting. Ali Hüseyinoğlu spoke in the fourth session on minority media in digital age and stat-ed that there are no bilingual kindergartens in Western Thrace and further added that the existing primary schools get less in number. In response to WTMUGA, Greece claimed that “Muslim mi-nority in Thrace” has got special rights along with all rights of citizenship. Greece also noted that a four-year programme has been established for the formation of Turkish language teachers in the university in Thessaloniki.