Greece’s Foreign Ministry has issued a sharp response to claims from Turkish Foreign Ministry accusing Greece of closing four minority primary schools in the north-eastern province of Thrace.
Ankara claims the closures constitute a violation of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne provisions which safeguard the rights of Muslims in the northern eastern region of Greece.
“Unfortunately, Ankara has entirely reversed reality once again in order to promote positions that do not stand up to scrutiny. We reject them in their entirety. We underscore that the decision to suspend the operation of schools is taken applying exactly the same criteria throughout Greece, that is the non-completion of a minimum number of nine (9) students,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexandros Papaioannou said.
Mr Papaioannou said that Greek authorities suspended the four schools’ operation because they did not meet the minimum required number of nine pupils. He added that a total of 29 non-minority primary schools were also closed for failing to meet the same standard.
“The educational policy decisions of the Greek state are made on the basis of equity and without discrimination for all Greek citizens,” he said.
Mr Papaioannou said that Turkey “should put an end to its misleading rhetoric and acknowledge the reality demonstrating that the Muslim Minority in Thrace, living in a free, democratic European country, enjoys fully its freedoms and rights, as do all Greek citizens.”
On the contrary, the very few schools of the Greek minority in Turkey bear witness to the violent and systematic uprooting of Greeks from their ancestral lands.
He said that 99 minority primary schools will operate in Thrace in the next academic year. However, only three Greek minority schools will operate in Istanbul, one on the north-eastern Aegean island of Imvros, while no classes will be held on nearby Tenedos.
“The Muslim minority in Thrace numbers approximately 120,000 people. The Greek minority in Turkey does not exceed 3,000 people, while at the time of the Lausanne Treaty they were the same number.”
“Regrettably for Turkey, the numbers speak their own undeniable truth about who respects and who implements the Lausanne Treaty,” he said.
In a statement on Friday, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic accused Greece of carrying out “discriminatory and oppressive policies” against what he described as the “Turkish minority” in Thrace.
“The Republic of Turkey will continue to support the minority’s struggle for its rights and justice, both in bilateral contacts and international platforms,” he said.
