Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will commence an official visit to Athens on Monday, with an itinerary that includes a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Nevertheless, the Turkish FM will begin his actual visit to Greece a day earlier, from the northeast Thrace province, in what Ankara terms as a “private visit”.
The Thrace province is home to an autochthonous Muslim minority in the country, a community which, in fact, is cited and granted specific rights, as enshrined in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. The treaty, of course, refers to a “Moslem” minority, whereas after 1974 official Turkey has demanded that any and all Muslims in the Greek border province be designated as ethnic “Turks”.
The latest nationalist ramblings from Ankara and the ultra-nationalist junior partner in the Erdogan administration stemmed from a reference by Mitsotakis to the Pomaks in Xanthi and Rhodope prefectures – a Slavic-speaking group of Muslims who are believed to be related to the ancient Thracian tribes that lived in the southeastern Balkans for millennia before the first Ottoman set foot in Europe as an invader-cum-settler.
According to press reports in Athens this week, the Greek government and FM Nikos Dendias had proposed that Cavusoglu and his official delegation arrive in the Cretan port city of Hania, where they would have been welcomed by Mitsotakis, who hails from the area.
As a consolation, diplomatic sources said Dendias will, instead, host an unofficial dinner for his Turkish counterpart on Sunday evening.
