Turkey’s Deputy FM provokes Greece during visit, claims it violates minority rights

Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yavuz Selim Kiran came to Greece to claim that the Muslim minority in he country is “Turkish.” Loyal to official Ankara, he once again accused Greece of violating the rights of the minority, curbing religious and linguistic freedoms.

We met w/representatives and religious officials of Turkish community in #Thessaloniki.
🔸Pressures&restrictions on freedom of language,religion&worship against our kinsmen are unacceptable.
🔸We are always with our kinsmen, who conserve their identity&religion against all odds. pic.twitter.com/j5atLnicjR

— Yavuz Selim KIRAN (@yavuzselimkiran) May 5, 2021

Greek Foreign Ministry sources dismissed the accusations of the Turkish official, saying that the community is “flourishing.”

“Greece remains firmly committed to its international obligations, fully respecting international law, which is a compass of its foreign policy,” the Greek Foriegn Ministry sources said.

They added that Greece implements the provisions of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which recognizes the existence of a religious Muslim minority in Thrace, in northern Greece.

“The Muslim minority, which is flourishing, numbers about 120,000 inhabitants, Greek citizens,” the same sources added.
“Any attempt to distort reality and falsify this information, wherever it comes from, is self-evidently dismissible and needs no further comment.”