Kostas Karaiskos: MP Bakoyannis meets with Ankara’s NGO-tool!

From Friday, September 25, Dora Bakoyannis is in Thrace for a three-day tour, as chairman of the Inter-Party Committee set up for the region. A Commission that, while its title continues to state that it will deal with the development of Thrace, suddenly appeared with to contain two working groups, one on economic issues and one on “institutional” issues.

In this term, of course, one can imagine issues that will really concern development, but one can also imagine many other more sinister aspects, which put on the table every aspect of the minority issue in the region. And unfortunately, our information confirms that this is how things are going, worryingly tying in to the current situation in which our neighboring country to the east is openly claiming Thrace during the Greek-Turkish dialogue that is about to begin.

Although we hope it is refuted, we point out and note that there is a meeting on Ms. Bakoyannis’ agenda that probably does not reassure us (to put it elegantly): that of Sunday at 9.30 am in Komotini with the Association of Minority Scientists of Western Thrace (ΒΤΑΥΤD). What is this club?

First of all, let us clarify that it is not just an association but has the status of a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and is the pre-eminent tool of Turkish politics and propaganda in Greek Thrace. By intention it did not use the expression “Turkish minority” in its title when it was founded in 1982, but in recent years it has not ceased to function precisely as an expression of Turkism, inside and outside Greece. It is worth seeing what the activities of this benevolent association are.

“Community of Young Scientists”

Its activities which could reallyconcern the scientists of the minority society in the region, which it supposedly represents, are few and far between. After all, what is this representation when not even 200 people participate in the elections from a group of thousands of Muslim scientists? Its activity is oriented towards Turkey, as one can easily see by looking at its announcements. It is indicative that years ago it had organized some briefings on agricultural issues, inviting officials of the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture!

It is the body that created a youth branch (GAT – Community of Young Scientists) and through it hangouts for Muslim students studying in Greek cities outside Thrace, with the obvious fear that some of these children may “stray from the fold”. In other words, they get out of control and reconcile with the rest of society. At one time, there were 13 of these GAT branches, but we do not know if they are still operating or not, since the financial crisis in Turkey also took effect.

It was also the financier and operator of the dozens of illegal kindergartens that were established and operated in Komotini, Xanthi, and in many Muslim settlements in the countryside in a state of complete illegality, with the coverage of course of the minority mayors, but also of the Greek authorities. At some point, these kindergartens finally closed and finally some began to be licensed as Creative Employment Centers, where this employment has the main secret purpose of keeping infants away from the Greek language and culture.

Professional “slanderers of Greece”

However, the role of BTAUTD is more unabashed outside Greece. For decades it has not missed an opportunity to slander Greece at every human rights forum. Whether it is the OSCE, the Council of Europe, or the UN, the Association’s representatives are there to denounce internationally what they suffer as a “Turkish minority”.

Meltem Giritli and Kerem Abdurahimoglu participated in the last performance they gave, just a few days ago at the European Regional Forum for Minority Issues. The title of the topic was “Hate speech, social media, and minorities” and in the press release they issued we read that “BTAYTD underlined that in recent years in Greece hate speech has increased significantly and that Greece’s intolerant policy against the Turkish community of western Thrace creates the right conditions for the hate speech of extremist groups “.

The organization also called on the Greek government to recognize the Turkish national identity of the Turkish community in western Thrace and to end the marginalization of the Turks in western Thrace.

They say, more or less, the same things on every occasion, as for example, responding to the statements of the former President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos. Today, the union is chaired by Hussein Baltatzis, whose election was announced in January 2019 by the mayor of Iasmos, Mumin Oder, in a jocular aside, which also revealed that the Turkish consulate had rigged the electoral processes.

A message to Ankara?

Under what reasoning will Dora Bakoyannis meet with these people on Sunday? As an experienced politician she knows well who she will meet and what she will hear, so the meeting can only have (hopefully …) only a symbolic value. It is probably a message to Turkey that we are taking into account its wishes for the region, regardless of course of what we will do in the end.

But even this in itself is a let down for the Christian majority of the population in Thrace, which feels that its future has become the object of backstage haggling. For the first time we see the issue of Thrace being put on the table of a Greek-Turkish “dialogue” and the disappointment is not mitigated at all by the establishment of a Parliamentary Committee.

In fact, if it is combined with the pending issues in other fields, such as the expected crucial decision of the Supreme Court on the banned consular unions, or with the constant requests of Ankara that are presented as Greek internal issues (election of mufti, management committees, etc.), the word “anxiety” is too modest to express the general feeling.

It is even worse, if the intentions of the Ministry of Defense for “administrative changes” in the structure of our forces in Evros really mean the abolition of our most modern military base, that of the 7th Mechanised Brigade in Provatonas, as the protesting residents stated today to the sister of the Prime Minister in Alexandroupolis.

Everything shows that we are returning to a logic of placating Turkey from an even worse position, something that is not justified by what we have been experiencing over the last two months. When we were forced to show our fist instead of the usual submissiveness, the limits of the bully that is threatening us became clear. It will be tragic to hand over at the negotiating table (or under it) Thracian space, when Greek men and women in uniform have won so much in the southeastern Aegean!