Ankara pushes Athens to cease denying identity of Turkish minority in Greece

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry has called on Greece to end its denial of the existence of a Turkish minority in the Western Thrace region of the neighbouring country. 

On Saturday, the ministry shared a statement made by the Western Thrace Turkish Minority Advisor Board that criticised recent remarks by Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. In a video conference, Mitsotakis referred to a village called Pasevik by its Greek name Pomakohoria and for referring to the region’s children as Ellinopula or “Greek children.” 

“We support this statement of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority Advisory Board and once again invite Greece to end the denial of the Turkish identity of our kinsmen living in Greece and to implement the ECHR rulings in this direction,” said the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a tweet. 

“It has been 31 years since Greece deprived Turkish Muslim Minority of its right to elect religious leaders in violation of international and bilateral treaties. Greece appointed officials as religious leaders against the will&clear objection of Turkish Minority,” it wrote in a follow-up tweet.

The situation for Turkish minorities in Western Thrace, a region of Greece bordering Turkey, has been a long-standing point of contention between Ankara and Athens.

Turkey has criticised Athens for discriminating against the citizens of Western Thrace, accusing it of limiting their rights. The Council of Europe has criticised some of Greece’s decisions, including the shuttering of Turkish associations, while the European Court of Human Rights has affirmed the right for Greek minorities to refer to themselves as “Turkish” in 2008. 

Following the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, a population exchange took place that saw Turkish minorities in Greece sent to Turkey in exchange for millions of Greeks from Anatolia. The group is permitted under the Greek constitution the freedom to exercise their religion, but they are recognised as “Greek Muslims” rather than Turks.