In defiance of state intervention, Greece's 150,000-strong Muslim Turkish minority is set to elect their new religious leader.
The elections in which two candidates, Mustafa Trampa and Mustafa Kamo, are running will be held following Friday prayer in the Xanthi (İskeçe) province of Western Thrace.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Trampa stressed that the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 gave rights to the Turkish minority to elect their religious leaders (mufti) freely.
"This right of ours however has been grabbed by the Greek state," he said.
Referring to the latest government regulation on the matter, Trampa maintained that it was far from meeting the demands of the minority.
"Such regulations, which contradict the minority's basic rights and freedom, are unacceptable to us," he said.
Friday's election will manifest the minority's rejection of the new regulation and the state intervention on the matter in general, Trampa noted.
Religious leaders, not only as religious authorities but also as historical social and cultural entities, are crucial to the minority, Trampa highlighted.
Kamo, for his part, agreed with Trampa on the importance of the religious leaders in the Western Thrace.
Türkiye has repeatedly urged Greece to respect the rights of the Turkish minority in its Western Thrace region and to stop denying recognition to elected religious leaders.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that Türkiye expects Greece to respect the right of the Turkish minority to elect their religious leaders, "which is guaranteed by international agreements, especially the Lausanne Peace Treaty, and to end its pressures in this regard."
In a statement, the Western Thrace Turkish Minority Advisory Board, on behalf of the Turkish minority, stressed that it will stand by its rights to elect its religious leader and protect its elected muftis.
The statement also called on minorities to fill all mosques this Friday to show solidarity and to protect their identity, religion, muftis and usurped rights.
Greece's Western Thrace region in the country's northeast, near the Turkish border, is home to a substantial, long-established Muslim Turkish minority numbering around 150,000.
The rights of the Turks of Western Thrace were guaranteed under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, but since then the situation has steadily deteriorated.
After a Greek junta came to power in 1967, the Turks of Western Thrace started to face harsher persecution and rights abuses by the Greek state, often in blatant violation of European court rulings.
The Turkish minority in Greece continues to face problems exercising its collective and civil rights and education rights, including Greek authorities banning the word "Turkish" in the names of associations, shuttering Turkish schools, and trying to block the Turkish community from electing its muftis.
In addition to violating longstanding treaties, these policies are also often in blatant violation of European Court of Human Rights rulings.
In Western Thrace, muftis have legal jurisdiction to decide on family and inheritance matters for the local Turkish Muslim community.
The mufti elections have been an issue since 1991.
The election of muftis by Muslims in Greece was regulated in the 1913 Treaty of Athens with the Ottoman Empire and was later included in Greek law.
However, Greece annulled this law in 1991 and started appointing muftis itself.
Most Muslim Turks in the cities of Komotini (Gümülcine) and Xanthi, Western Thrace do not recognize the appointed muftis and instead elect their own, who are not recognized by the Greek state.