Erdogan expected to visit Thrace after Athens
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will head to Thrace after his visit to Athens in early December, as he does every time he visits Greece, before returning to Ankara.
This will be the third time Erdogan will visit Thrace during a visit to Greece.
According to reports, the region’s Muslim minority expects him to visit Komotini on Friday, December 8, a day of prayer for Muslims.
It is unknown whether he will also visit Xanthi or one of the mountain villages of Rodopi. He does, however, intend to pray at a mosque in the city and to meet with minority institutions and officials at the Turkish consulate or a hotel.
Erdogan is also expected to visit a minority school or tour the Muslim districts of Komotini to meet his fellow Muslims.
The previous visit by the Turkish leader to the region was on December 8, 2017, again on a Friday, after his meeting in Athens with then Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and the first one was in 2004, during Kostas Karamanlis’ premiership.
However, the climate in Greek-Turkish relations and the wider regional environment has since changed, with Erdogan claiming a role as a powerful player in geopolitical developments, and also on the occasion of the events in Gaza.
Moreover, Erdogan has made numerous references to Thrace when talking about the “Blue Homeland” doctrine, which envisions Turkish influence across large swaths of the Eastern Mediterranean. His references, in the context of his escalating irredentism, to Thrace and Thessaloniki, which he has included in the “borders of [his] heart,” were seen as anything but positive by the Christian element of Xanthi and Rodopi.
Erdogan was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Thessaloniki on December 7 but the venue has changed to Athens. Although the change was made was made for “practical reasons” (large delegation, security issues), which is not far from the reality, possible local reactions were also taken into account, mainly due to Erdogan’s recent statements.
