Turkey’s efforts to cultivate political and cultural influence across the Balkans have drawn renewed attention following recent developments in North Macedonia and a public intervention by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan concerning Muslims in Greece’s Western Thrace.
About 10 days ago, Erdogan’s annual message commemorating physician and former lawmaker Sadik Ahmet, who died in a traffic accident in 1995, referred to the rights of the “Turkish Minority of Western Thrace,” a term used by Ankara for the region’s Muslim population.
Turkey also dispatched Deputy Foreign Minister Zeki Levent Gumrukcu to Komotini for the memorial event.
Attention in Athens also focused on North Macedonia, where the governing coalition led by the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party narrowly survived after the departure of Albanian parties.
On July 10, the country’s Turkish party, the Turkish Democratic Party (TDP), formally joined the coalition following an agreement between Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and party leader Zulfikar Zejnula. Days later, Zejnula became a minister without a portfolio.
