Ankara slammed Greece's latest move denying recognition of the Turkish minority’s elected Muslim clerics (muftis).
In a statement on Thursday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry termed the move as "unacceptable" and urged Greece to respect international law and fulfill its obligations under the longstanding Treaty of Lausanne Peace and other relevant agreements on the Turkish minority in the Western Thrace region.
The statement came in response to new legislation allowing the appointment of muftis by Greek authorities, a system the Turkish minority in Western Thrace rejects, as it ignores the Turkish minority’s right under treaty to elect their own muftis.
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, or around a third of the population. 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 own muftis.
The office of elected Muslim mufti has also cried foul at the move said to violate the minority's rights guaranteed by treaty.
"According to the Treaty of Lausanne, while the Turkish minority in Western Thrace has the right to elect their own mufti, Greece does not officially recognize the muftis elected by the minority," said the office of elected Muslim mufti of Xanthi (Iskeçe), northeastern Greece, on Tuesday, stressing that the Greek move is contrary to Lausanne, a pact in force for nearly 100 years, and other international agreements.
The latest move came just weeks after condemned also Greece’s decision to shut down four more elementary schools belonging to the Turkish Muslim minority living in Western Thrace.
"With this latest decision, more than half of the minority primary schools have been closed. Thus, Greece's policy of closing primary schools belonging to the Turkish Muslim Minority in Western Thrace through 'temporary suspension' has proven to be systematic," the foreign ministry said.
Greek authorities shut down over 126 Turkish minority schools in the Western Thrace region, in violation of international treaties in the past 10 years, as they impose restrictive measures against students attending these schools.
Greece launched an education drive in 2011 to cut costs and started merging schools with a low number of students, drastically reducing the number of schools from 1,933 to 877. In 2020 alone, some 14 schools attended by Turkish minority students were shut down.