Turkey’s Greeks not pawns in tit-for-tat clash: Bağış

ANKARA - Radikal

EU Minister Bağış (R) and the Greek Patriarch Bartholomew (2nd R) chats in this photo. ‘It is our priority that we find a solution to our own citizens’ issues,’ Bağış says. Hürriyet photo

Ankara will not treat Turkey’s Greek-origin citizens in correlation to Athens’ treatment of Turks in Greece, EU Minister Egemen Bağış has said while noting the lack of a mosque in the Greek capital.

While Muslims living in Greece still do not have a cemetery or a mosque in Athens, “It is important that the administrations of both countries take goodwill steps simultaneously,” Bağış said in the wake of Patriarch Bartholomew’s recent lament that the Greek Orthodox Halki seminary on Heybeliada island remains closed despite promises to reopen the facility. They are aware of the need for Turks of Greek origin to educate their own clergymen, Bağış said, adding that they were engaged in comprehensive work to reopen the Halki Seminary.

‘We will do whatever we can'

The government did not have an anti-constitutional special promise made to any international organization or country, or to any community, Bağış said. “However, on the other hand, it is our government’s priority that we find a solution to our own citizens’ issues, naturally within the framework of international and national legal boundaries.

Indeed it is very significant that Greece approaches the problems of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace simultaneously with the same sensitivity. Therefore, while keeping all dialogue doors wide open, we will do whatever we can for everybody to enjoy their rights without any problems.”

Bağış also said in March that the re-opening of Halki Seminary would not pose a threat to Turkey, adding that he hopes Greece would also take positive steps, keeping their responsibilities in mind.

The Halki Seminary has been hit hard by the political turmoil between Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. In 1971, Turkey decided to bring all private institutions of higher education under state control and closed the seminary. The Halki Seminary, formally the Theological School of Halki, was founded on Oct. 1, 1844 on the island of Halki (in Turkish Heybeliada), the second-largest of the Princes’ Islands offshore Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara.