Behind the Scenes Ankara Thrace: Orders to fake muftis and Habiboglu’s actions

The diplomatic itinerary began on Sunday, May 24, 2026, from Xanthi. There, the graduation ceremony (Hatim) of Quranic School students was instrumentalized as a field of religious and political mobilization, in the presence of the Turkish Consul General in Komotini, Aykut Ounal, and minority MPs Hüseyin Zeybek and Burhan Baran.

Immediately after, a delegation of the hard core of the consular bloc—composed of the pseudo-muftis of Xanthi and Komotini, Mustafa Trampa and Ibrahim Serif, as well as the President of the “Turkish Youth of Komotini” (GTGB), Sedat Hasan—hastily traveled to Ankara to receive directive instructions, in view of a particularly sensitive period for stability in the region.

In the Turkish capital, the pro-consular group held successive meetings with top mechanisms exercising soft power and diplomacy:

• YTB & TİKA: Meetings with Abdullah Eren (head of the Directorate of Turkish Expatriates – YTB) and Abdulhandi Turus (TİKA), organizations that function as financial and educational arms for interventions in Thrace.

• Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The delegation was received with full formality by Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister and President of the EU Directorate, Ambassador Mehmet Kemal Bozay.

At precisely the same time, the thread of propaganda in Europe was picked up from Germany by the President of ABTTF, Halit Habipoglu. On the occasion of the visit of Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias to Albania, Habipoglu issued an aggressive statement, attempting to equate unequal things and accusing Greece of “targeting” the minority.

The simultaneous appearance of the pseudo-muftis at the Turkish Foreign Ministry and the international intervention of ABTTF prove the absolute coordination under the orders of the neighboring country’s revisionist center, aimed at managing a situation that threatens Ankara’s influence of illegal structures.

Historical & Legal Framework: Thrace vs. Albania

The attempt to equate the Muslim minority of Thrace with the Greek minority of Albania constitutes a monument of legal and historical distortion. The two cases are governed by completely different regimes:

Characteristic

Greek Minority in Albania

Muslim Minority in Thrace

International Status

Recognized as a National Minority based on Albania’s unilateral declaration in 1921 to the League of Nations and related bilateral agreements.

Recognized exclusively as a Religious Minority based on the international and binding Treaty of Lausanne (1923).

Community Composition

Unified ethnic group (Greek nationals) historically residing in specific areas (e.g., Northern Epirus).

Three-component community that is not ethnically unified. Consists of three distinct groups: Pomaks, Roma and people of Turkish origin.

Rhetorical Goal

Protection of the historical, linguistic and religious rights of a recognized national group.

Instrumentalization by the Consulate to label the entire minority as “Turkish,” serving Ankara’s revisionist agenda.

Editor’s Comment

The puzzle of recent days composes a clear picture: Ankara leaves nothing to chance. The instrumentalization of small children at the Hatim in Xanthi was used as a communication smokescreen, so that the pro-consular triad would depart immediately afterwards for Turkey. The visit to Ankara’s decision-making centers, a short time before a pivotal confrontation with legality in the field of Thrace, constitutes an attempt to receive specific instructions on how the institutions of the Greek State will be dealt with.

Any institutional or judicial crack in the action of para-institutional actors will constitute a strong blow to the attempt to impose an informal “state within a state” and religious or ethnic fanaticism in the region. That is why Turkey’s top soft power mechanisms were mobilized.

For us in Thrace, the stance of the Greek State cannot be exhausted in passive observation. The real weakening of the pro-consular bloc will come only when the Greek state covers in practice the gaps exploited by YTB and TİKA. The radical upgrading of public minority education, the economic support of the region and the daily fortification of equality and equal citizenship are the only weapons to make our Muslim fellow citizens feel secure within the Greek and European legal order, breaking the bonds of fear and consular isolation. The coming hours will show whether legality in Thrace remains non-negotiable.

Source: TAXIARCHISpress

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