Troubles of Turks in Greece

Faruk Sen, the director of the Center for Studies on Turkey located in Essen, Germany submitted to Gerhard Stoudmann, the general manager of the Democratic Institutions and Human Rights office of the Organization for Security and cooperation in Europe, and Beate Winkler, the chairperson of the European Racism Monitoring Commission, a report regarding the situation of the Turkish minority in Greece.

The report states that the Turkish born Greek citizens with minority status in Greece continues to receive pressures, This minority living in western Thrace increased due to the accelerating tension in the Turkey-Greece relations.

Emphasizing that the Turkish minority in Greece was forced to immigrate and were denied their “minority status” but were called “Greek Muslims,” the report also states that a change was observed in the Greek policy regarding the Turkish minority since last year.

Since George Papandreu, successor to Theodoros Pangalos, was appointed as the foreign affairs minister, the relations with the Turkish minority had begun to improve with Papandreu’s liberal attitude towards Turkey the report mentioned.

Papandreu was said to have actually said the words “Turkish minority” for the very first time instead of the usual title “Greek Muslims.” but report also states that little progress in providing better living standards to the Turkish minority was made and that there were some important prevailing problems.

‘Turkish minority is not treated equally’

The Turkish minority is thought to have two major problems: that the rights were arbitrarily granted by the Greek government and that the minority was not dealt with on equal terms as the Greeks. The report noted that Turks were granted the rights to have a driving or hunting licence and a certificate to buy real estate only after 80 years.

The report states that although the military forbidden zone in northwestern Thrace was lifted, foreigners and especially Turkish journalists, were not allowed in the area.

Also emphasized in the report were the facts that Turkish teachers were not allowed to work and Turkish books were not allowed to be used as directed by the Greek government and that the Turkish minority was not allowed access to European Union aid or to loans by the Greek banks.