Leader of the New Democracy party and Former Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday accused Turkey of direct interference in the parliamentary elections in the Rhodope region, where Ferhat Ozgur, a Muslim candidate of the opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance party, won
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd June, 2023) Leader of the New Democracy party and Former Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday accused Turkey of direct interference in the parliamentary elections in the Rhodope region, where Ferhat Ozgur, a Muslim candidate of the opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance party, won.
"In Rhodope there was indeed overt interference by the Turkish consulate in favor of a certain candidate. And that's a problem," Mitsotakis said in an interview to Greek newspaper Proto Thema.
Mitsotakis said that Greek Muslims should feel that they have equal rights with the rest of the citizens, majority of whom are Christians, and that his party was doing everything to this end. However, the former prime minister warned that third parties might want to use the situation to interfere in Greece's domestic affairs.
In response, SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance party heavily criticized Mitsotakis and said that his policy was reminiscent of the worst moments of the nation's division and only served Ankara's interests.
After the defeat of Greece in the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922 and the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1923, about 100,000 Turkish-speaking Muslims remained in Western Thrace. In Turkey they are called the "Turkish" minority and in Greece the "Muslim" minority, as Athens claims there is no Turkish minority in Greece.
