ABTTF President: “As a community, we have clearly felt the negative consequences of the party policy of ND, which denies our existence and our Turkish identity, in the last four years that they have been in power. As Western Thrace Turks, we demand that the ethnic origin be accounted for in the census in our country, and we call on our country which is a full member of the Council of Europe to immediately ratify the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which protects and observes the rights of minorities’’.
The debates between ND and SYRIZA continue unabated after the statement of our country Greece’s former Prime Minister and New Democracy (ND) Chair Kyriakos Mitsotakis, claiming that SYRIZA Rodopi Deputy Özgür Ferhat was elected as a result of the intervention of the Consulate General of the Republic of Türkiye in Komotini.
In the programme ‘‘Casus Belli’’ broadcast on Attica TV on 7 June 2023, Angelos Syrigos, former Deputy Minister of Education from ND, claimed that SYRIZA deputies defended the existence of the Turkish minority in (Western) Thrace. In response to the question formulated by Syrigos about whether he shared the aforementioned view, Nikos Filis, former Minister of Education from SYRIZA, indicated that SYRIZA has an opinion in this respect, and that the Minority consists of three parts, namely those of Turkish origin who define themselves as Turks, and Pomaks and Roma. Filis answered positively to the question of the programme host about whether there could be a candidate of SYRIZA who would say something different apart from this opinion, and said that of course he could.
Underscoring that the people in the region wish for a census of minorities to be realised and that they are right in this demand, Filis noted that the Greek state does not carry out a census of minorities in (Western) Thrace. Moreover, Filis noted that the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe mentions the census in this direction, and pointed out that Greece signed this convention but did not approve it in Parliament, and that the people in the region want this convention to be implemented.
President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) Halit Habip Oğlu made the following statement: “It seems that the discussions that started between ND and SYRIZA after the accusatory and marginalising statement made by Mitsotakis targeting the Turkish community in Western Thrace through SYRIZA Rodopi Deputy Özgür Ferhat will continue to be at the top of our country’s political agenda before the general elections on 25 June 2023. As a community, we have clearly felt the negative consequences of the party policy of ND, which denies our existence and our Turkish identity, in the last four years that they have been in power. Mitsotakis continues to insist on imposing an identity on our community at every opportunity, as for example when he referred to our children studying at the public kindergarten in the Turkish village of Pahni (Paşevik) as ‘‘Greek children’’. Indeed, as Filis explained it in the television programme, we demand that ethnic origin be accounted for in the census in our country, and we call on our country which is a full member of the Council of Europe to immediately ratify the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which protects and observes the rights of minorities’’.
