Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called into an event inside Greek territory on Wednesday, speaking directly with ...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called into an event inside Greek territory on Wednesday, speaking directly with residents of Echinos, a village near Xanthi in Western Thrace. The call was arranged during a visit by a delegation of his ruling AKP party, led by the party's Women's Organization president and Istanbul lawmaker Tugba Isik Ercan. Erdogan addressed the attendees as "my brothers," sending what he described as "cordial greetings and appreciation from Ankara" to the residents of the village, which Turkey refers to by the Turkish name Sahin. He singled out the AKP lawmaker by name, saying her presence at the gathering made him "very happy." The AKP published a statement describing those who met with its delegation as "the Turkish community of Western Thrace." That framing is a direct challenge to Greece's legal position. Under the Treaty of Lausanne, Greece recognizes the minority in Thrace as Muslim, not as an ethnic Turkish community. The distinction carries real legal weight, since framing them as ethnically Turkish supports Ankara's long-standing claim to be a protector of that population. This is not the first time Erdogan has made direct contact with Western Thrace's Muslim minority. His 2017 visit to Komotini was the first trip to Greece by a Turkish head of state in 65 years, and it produced a string of public disputes over the Lausanne treaty and minority rights. Erdogan's phone call into a Greek village, organized by his party's apparatus and backed by an official AKP statement claiming a "Turkish community" on Greek soil, is a clear political signal. Athens has not yet issued a response. #WesternThrace #Erdogan #Greece