Intensive Dialogue in Strasbourg: FUEN and its Member Organisations held talks with PACE members and with the bodies of the Council of Europe

FUEN and three of its member organisations: Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), Rhodes, Kos and the Dodacanese Turks Culture and Solidarity Association (ROISDER) and International Society of the Meskhetian Turks VATAN, attended the Winter Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The three groups representing the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace, the Turkish minority in Rhodes and Kos in Greece and the Meskhetian Turks, respectively, raised the problems of their own communities. 

FUEN Vice President and President of ABTTF Halit Habip Oglu, President of ROISDER Prof Dr Mustafa Kaymakci and President of VATAN Zhavid Aliev had high-level talks with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Mr Thorbjørn Jagland and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and former President of PACE Mr Mevlut Cavusoglu in Strasbourg. The representatives had meetings with the Chairperson of the PACE Sub-Committee on the Rights of Minorities Mr Viorel Riceard Badea (Romania, EPP/CD), the Rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee on Georgia Mr Boriss Cilevics (Latvia, SOC), and the delegation had also talks with the member of the Georgian National Delegation to the PACE Mrs Guguli Magradze and the Vice Chairman of the National Delegation of Azerbaijan Mr Vusal Huseynov. The three organisations had also meetings with the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the Directorate of Political Advice of the Council of Europe and the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe.

During the meetings with the PACE members and the bodies of the Council of Europe, FUEN Vice President Habip Oglu introduced FUEN and referred to its activities on the protection and promotion of the rights of the autochthonous, national minorities in Europe. ABTTF raised attention for the current situation in educational and religious autonomy and reported recent developments. The Turkish minority from Rhodes and Kos reported about the problems of their non-recognition as a minority group in Greece and raised educational and religious problems in the islands. The Meskhetian Turks reported about the situation with regard to the repatriation of the Meskhetian population to their homeland in Georgia, which has undertaken an obligation in its application for membership of the Council of Europe to adopt a legal framework to begin and to complete the process of repatriation of the Meskhetian population to the Akhaltsih (Samtskhe-Javakheti) region of Georgia. 

Photos: 

top: meeting with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Mr Thorbjørn Jagland
bottom: meeting with the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Mevlut Cavusoglu