Turkey wants harmony with Greece: President Erdoğan

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on April 16 that Turkey disapproves of the rhetoric expressed by Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias at a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and emphasized that Ankara instead wants a "harmonization period" with its neighbor.

"We do not find it right," Erdoğan told reporters after Friday prayers in response to the attitude of the Greek minister who publicly voiced a series of longstanding complaints about Turkey during a visit to the capital Ankara on April 15.

"On the one hand, there shall be a process of harmony. On the other hand, we shall not let others, such as the European Union, intervene, as I told him," the president stated.

He recalled that Turkey and Greece, as two neighbors, have "a history and a different approach, as well as warm relations."
Erdoğan said nearly 150,000 Turks lived in Western Thrace and noted that Greece also has ties with Turkey, recalling that Dendias had visited the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Istanbul.

"You are not showing the necessary citizenship interest to our 150,000 cognates in Greece. You are still assigning the chief mufti there; you are not paying necessary attention to them as citizens. According to Lausanne [Treaty], you do not have the right to assign the chief mufti. We do not assign patriarchs," Erdoğan stated.

Erdoğan said his meeting with Dendias was in a positive atmosphere.

"We had a meeting in a very warm atmosphere," but this mood was changed in their press conference with Çavuşoğlu, Erdoğan said.

The Turkish minister had to rebuke his Greek counterpart for unacceptable accusations against Turkey, the president said.

"Çavuşoğlu put him in his place in the face of this attitude and his...

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