“Unfortunately, once again, Ankara completely reverses reality in order to project positions that cannot withstand criticism. We reject them in their entirety”, says the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alexandros Papaioannou, in response to a journalist’s question regarding the objections of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding minority education in Thrace.
As he points out, the decision to suspend the operation of schools is made with the exact same criteria throughout Greece, that is, when the number of students falls below the minimum threshold of nine students.
It states that in the educational year 2022-2023, only in the Region of Eastern Macedonia-Thrace, in addition to the four minority primary schools, the operation of another 29 non-minority primary education units is suspended.
“Therefore, no one can speak of unfavorable treatment of minority students,” he underlines.
“These data clearly demonstrate that the educational choices of the Greek State are made equally and without discrimination for all Greek citizens, with the sole aim of providing a high level of education for the benefit of the students. Turkey must put an end to its misleading rhetoric and understand the reality that demonstrates that the Muslim Minority in Thrace, living in a free and democratic and European country, fully enjoys its freedoms and rights, just like all Greeks citizens”, he emphasized.
On the contrary, he adds, “the very few schools of the Greek minority in Turkey bear witness to the violent and systematic uprooting of the Greeks from their ancestral lands”.
He reminds that “for the prosperous Muslim minority in Thrace, ninety-nine primary schools will operate during the next educational year, while in Constantinople only three will operate, one in Imbro and none in Tenedos”.
He also reminds that the Muslim minority in Thrace numbers approximately 120,000 members, while the Greek minority in Turkey does not exceed 3,000 people, while at the time of the signing of the Lausanne Treaty they were the same number.
“Unfortunately for Turkey, the numbers speak their own undeniable truth about who respects and implements the Lausanne Treaty”, he stresses.
“The Hellenic Republic is a European state of law that fully protects and guarantees the human rights and freedoms of its citizens”, he concludes.
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The Turkish claims
Yesterday, the press representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Tanzu Bilgic, in a statement, in which he noted that the schools belong to the “Turkish minority of Western Thrace”, claimed that Athens is closing four minority schools in Thrace.
As Bilgic emphasized, his country condemns “Greece’s decision to close another 4 primary schools, belonging to the ‘Turkish minority of Western Thrace’, using the excuse of austerity measures and the insufficient number of students every year”.
He also noted that, “with this latest decision, which has been repeated in recent years, more than half of the minority primary schools have been closed. Thus, it seems that Greece’s policy of closing the primary schools of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace, through ‘temporary suspension’, has become systematic. As we have repeatedly stated, the aforementioned decisions, which violate the right of the minority to establish, manage and supervise its own schools in accordance with the provisions of the Lausanne Peace Treaty, are an indication of the reflection of the discriminatory and oppressive policy practiced in every field for years at the expense of our compatriots in Western Thrace in the field of education”, said Tanzu Bilgic.
