...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
's foreign minister began a trip to Greece on Sunday, quickly angering his hosts with tweets about his meeting with members of the Moslem minority.
"In Greece to meet members of
Cavusoglu visited a school as well as a village and the
"I emphasized that we will always stand resolutely with the
Athens describes the minority as multi-ethnic Moslems, and Cavusoglu's description of them as "
"The Moslem minority in Thrace has about 120,000 Greek inhabitants," the ministry said in a statement.
"Turkey's constant attempts to distort this reality, as well as the allegations of non-protection of the rights of these citizens, or of discrimination, are unfounded and are rejected in their entirety," it added.
"Greece would like to improve relations with Turkey, but with the respect for international law as a prerequisite."
Moslems in the Thrace region were given minority status in Greece after the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which ended a war between Greece and Turkey.
Turkey has often claimed that Greece fails to properly protect the rights of the minority, many of whom are of
During a heated presser in Ankara in mid-April, Cavusoglu raised the issue with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias.
"You don't allow the
"If they call themselves
Cavusoglu is due to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as well as Dendias in Athens on Monday.
Cavusoglu had previously said the aim of his visit was to prepare for a bilateral meeting between Mitsotakis and
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than there are in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really most important...during a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
summit in Brussels on June 14.
While the Greek media said Cavusoglu's visit was a "test" of how his meetings would go in Athens, the Greek government had tried to downplay any significance of the Thrace trip ahead of his arrival.
"The visit in Thrace is a private visit. Greece is an open, democratic country that does not forbid private visits. As far as the (Thrace) minority is concerned, it is enjoying a status of equality," Greek government spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni said on Thursday.
The status of Greece's Moslem minority is one of several points of contention between the two NATO allies.
Byzantine heritage inside Turkey, after Ankara's move last year to convert the revered Hagia Sophia cathedral from a museum into a mosque sparked fury from Athens, is another.
Relations also plunged last year during a face-off over a wealth of energy deposits in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.