There should be no allowance for Reciprocity

Witten – 07.12.2005

Press Release

“There should be no allowance for Reciprocity” says Habipoğlu, chairman of ABTTF

Halit Habipoğlu, chairman of Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) drew at-tention to the possible implementation risk of “Reciprocity” in the report that will evaluate the problems of Western Thrace Turkish minority and the problems of non – muslim minorities liv-ing in Turkey. There has been recently a tendency to evaluate these two separate problems in a common report by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Turkish Delegation presented a report that put the important problems of Western Thrace Turkish mi-nority like; not being able to select religion head man, not being able to express their identity as well as loss of territory, and denaturalization process, on the agenda of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and Greece Delegation criticised Turkey with a counter report that empha-sized on the rights of the non – muslim minorities that live in Turkey.

PACE Political Office delivered opinion at its November meeting as to evaluate both of the reports to-gether and send them to for Judicial Commission for judicial evaluation.

The meeting of the Judicial Commission will be held on 13.12.2005 and in case of a positive decision, problems of the Western Thrace Turkish minority and non – muslim minorities living in Turkey will be on the EU Parliament’s agenda contemporeneously.

Habipoğlu reminds that they wrote letters to Turkish and Greece Delegations chairmen and asked them to put the problems of Western Thrace Turkish minority on EU agenda as well as they presented a re-port about the problems of the Turkish minority to Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner of European Court of Human Rights and called for democratic process to take place as soon as possible in the region. He continues as “ It is a great pleasure for us to see that EU Parliament discuss and show interest to the problems of our minority and we are proud that our efforts bring good results”.

Also Macedonian, Albanian and Wallachian minorities should be covered

Habipoğlu called attention to the risk of entering the “dangerous area” in case that the report covers the minorities in both of the countries, Greece and Turkey. “The 37 – 45 articles of Lausanne Treaty, which guarantee the rights of the non – muslim minorities living in Turkey and the Western Thrace Turkish minority, were implemented in the framework of Reciprocity which was actually aganist international law.

Reciprocity does not mean that a country can hinder its citizens’ rights and it does not make this hinder legal when another country makes an unjustness to the referred country’s citizens. This mistake was made in the past and I hope the report will not repeat this historical mistake ” said Habipoğlu.

“In Greece, there are other minorities like Macedonian, Albanian and Wallachian minorities, whose rights were not guaranteed by Lausanne Treaty, and these minorities should not be ignored and should be covered by the report “ commented Habipoğlu.