Heinous attack on the Turkish war cemetery in Athens-Piraeus!

On 25 March 2011 early in the morning, the Turkish war cemetery in Athens-Piraeus was attacked by an unidentified person or group of persons, who dumped paint and wrote racist slogans on the grave markers of Turkish martyrs.

The Spokesman of the Greek Government George Petalotis condemned the attack in a written statement and said that that heinous attack against the memory of the fallen was also against the his-tory and civilization of his country, adding that these provocations will not succeed as the entire society stood against them.

Regarding the attack, the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Turkey released a statement pointing out the timing of the attack. In the statement, it is said that such efforts by those who aim to disrupt the improvement of Turkish-Greek relations and the rapprochement of the two peoples will be in vain.

With regard to the attack, Halit Habipoğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) said “As ABTTF, we strongly condemn the atrocious attack on the Turkish war cemetery in Athens-Piraeus. This attack, which took place in a period where we experience the im-provement of relations between Turkey and Greece, demonstrates that the increasing racist and hate-based attacks having occurred for a specific time in Western Thrace have spread to Athens. While we hope that this attack is an individual case, we are concerned that this state spreads throughout the country”.