Turkish minority calls Greek move disclaiming local elected leaders ‘unacceptable’

ATHENS (AA) – The office of elected Muslim mufti in a region of Greece with a large minority Muslim Turkish population has cried foul at a 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 (Iskece), 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 office was objecting to new legislation allowing the appointment of muftis by Greek authorities, which the Turkish minority in Western Thrace calls “unacceptable,” as it ignores the Turkish minority’s right under treaty to elect their own mufti.

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, especially in population centers such as Xanthi.

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.