Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu launched an attack on the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos for mislabelling the Muslims minority in Thrace as Greek, instead of Turkish.

Cavusoglu wrote on his Twitter account: “The president of a country that is said to be the cradle of democracy has once again called the Muslim Turkish minority a Greek Muslim minority, despite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. Whatever you say, the Turkish minority of Western Thrace has been here for centuries and will remain Turkish.”

The Turkish press also attacked the Greek President of his labelling, dubbing his statements “outrageous”.

Prokopis Pavlopoulos had said on January 18th during his visit to Evros in north-eastern Greece: “Regardless of what is said and from whom, the truth under international law is one, a truth impossible to delete in any way. The truth is that under the Lausanne Treaty, the Muslim minority living in Thrace is a religious minority in no way a national minority.”