Turkey’s foreign minister has repeated claims about Greece’s Muslim minority that Athens has criticized in the past.

Chairing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers during the group’s Annual Coordination Meeting held on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly in New York on Friday, Hakan Fidan said “the Cyprus issue and the situation of the Muslim Turkish minority in Western Thrace [sic] remain two key priorities in Turkish foreign policy,” as reported by Turkish state news agency Anadolu.

Fidan called on OIC member states to support the rights of Turkish Cypriots and to establish direct contact with them.

“He further noted that the Muslim Turkish minority in Western Thrace [sic] and the Turkish Muslim population in the Dodecanese Islands continue to face ‘serious violations’ that deny them their fundamental rights and freedoms,” Anadolu said.

Under the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, Greece recognizes the existence of a Muslim, but not an ethnic, minority in Thrace.

In July, Greece’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ioannis Stamatekos noted that some of the OIC’s positions and resolutions contradict international law and established UN resolutions.

Stamatekos specifically criticized the OIC’s references to a “Turkish Muslim minority in Western Thrace” and a “Turkish Muslim community in the Dodecanese.”

“Such references are erroneous,” he said, “as the status of the Muslim minority in Thrace is explicitly defined by the Treaty of Lausanne on the basis of religion, not ethnicity.”

He added that the Muslim Greek citizens residing in Rhodes and Kos enjoy full rights, including the protection of their religious freedoms, just like any other Greek citizen.

Source: Ekathimerini.com