The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (, short: ABTTF, , short: ΕΟΤΔΘ) was established in Germany in 1988 by seven founding associations, as a nonprofit umbrella organization and dissolved in 2013. With the Association of Western Thrace Turks in the UK, the organisation adopted its current name.
ABTTF is headquartered in Witten, Germany and since 2010, has maintained an office in Brussels, Belgium. The organization has 29 member associations in Germany and one in England. In total, the ABTTF unites 6,000 affiliated members. It is the first organization to be granted special consultative status by the United Nations Economic and Social Council as a representative body of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace.
History
The convention concerning the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations that was signed on 30 January 1923, in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), exempted the Muslim Turkish population living in Western Thrace and the Greek Orthodox minority in Istanbul and on the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada).
Under the Treaty of Lausanne, a population of 150,000 Muslims of various ethnicities living in Western Thrace, such as Turks, Pomaks and Romas, were granted official minority status. The Muslim minority's status in Western Thrace is explicitly defined within Articles 37-44 of the Lausanne Treaty. According to the officially granted minority status within Section III, Turks in Western Thrace were given equal rights to “establish, manage and control at their own expense any charitable, religious and social institutions, any schools and other establishments for instruction and education, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their own religion freely therein”.
Beginning in the 1950s, Greek non-compliance with Treaty obligations extended to considerable human rights violations. Growing political instability due to the Greek civil war and Greek military junta of 1967-1974 that followed further instigated Greek nationalism and exacerbated the situation of minorities, including the Turks living in Western Thrace.
In the 1960s and 1970s, increased tensions over Greece-Turkey relations were reflected as suppression and assimilation policies that targeted Turks. The policies put in place by Greek authorities to intimidate the Turkish minority manifested themselves as “dissolution” of the minority and eventually leaving territories by means of “forced migration”. Article 19 of Greek Nationality Code, which was in force from 1955 to 1998, stipulated that “a person of non-Greek ethic origin leaving Greece without the intention of returning may be declared as having lost Greek nationality....” The Turkish minority was forced to migrate. While the vast majority of migration wave was towards Turkey, some groups chose to migrate to other European countries, in particular to Germany.
Today, the population of Western Thrace Turks in Germany amounts to 30,000. A considerable number of Western Thrace Turks live in other EU Member States, such as the Netherlands, England, Sweden, France, Belgium and Austria. The need to keep alive their cultural values and maintain solidarity in their host countries led the Western Thrace Turks to create collectively created associations.
In Germany, the first Western Thrace Turks Association was established on 1 January 1978 in Giessen of the state Hessen. This was followed by other Western Thrace Turks Associations including in Stuttgart, Homburg/Saar, Munich, Düsseldorf, Kelsterbach. The rise in the number of associations was a response to the assimilation policies Greece has pursued against the minority population.
During the 1980s, successive Greek governments continued their suppression policy against minority groups. Initial objections were raised through the associations in Germany. These associations established Coordination Committees aimed at advancing cooperation between the various associations. These efforts yielded fruit on 28 February 1988, when seven member associations co-founded the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Germany.
These Turks thereby attained a larger sphere of representation, which gave a voice to the political, social, cultural, educational and other problems of the minority in the international arena. In 1996, when the UK association joined the rest, the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Germany became the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe.