Turkish citizens of Greek origin caught in tension between the two countries • FRANCE 24 English

45 comments

1. You are entering a precarious territory here france24. This is the Balkans . We don't need much to blaze ourselves up. So be wary.

2. Some 1500 to 2000 Greco-Romans left of what once was the great Eastern Roman Empire! Sadness, only. Turks, you can be proud of yourselves! Scumbags.

3. Muslims are going to western countries staying forever and demanding to change our laws. Were westerners when going to a muslim country are under threat all the time. Its time to wake up and so the same.to them.

4. lmao

5. In the news text, tension was mentioned… Where is that tension? Where is it to pit two countries against each other?
   Are you doing journalism or are you trying to provoke public opinion for your private purposes? Now time to decide, are you a real journalist or a loyal servant of the imperialist colonial powers?

6. As a Turk I deeply hope that this tide would turn. We should all regret what had happened in 1940s and 50s.

7. Since the Turks ( an islamized central-asian tribe ) set foot in this region, around 1000 AD, they've consistently stirred up trouble, imposing restrictions and aggressively displacing other populations, all without regard for international laws or their neighbors' sovereignty. And now Turkey has the nerve to point fingers at Greece? Let's not forget Turkey's track record of countless pogroms and genocides, all to bolster its artificial national identity as 'Turkish.' It's time for some real accountability.

8. 0:10 It's not the so called "Byzantines"… It is the Romans. That is how the 4th century Greeks were defined by the whole world and themselves.

9. Εastern Roman Empire..Not Byzantine….. Greeks unfortunately wiped out by Turkish policies.. On the contrary Muslim minority in Greece thrives…

10. Irony is Turks come from central Asia, invaded, masscred, assimilated the native people.l of the land, the Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Asyrians and force most of them to call themselves 'Turks' in reality 95-97% of people in turkey has nothing to with being turk nor share the same dna!

11. Not surprised. France is controlled by zionists who are always trying to create enemies of Turks and Greeks. They couldnt care less about Greeks they have always used them as propaganda

12. The French and the British are responsible for what happened in the Greek population of Anatolia in 1922, so this video can be perceived as an irony…

13. It’s the exact opposite in Greece, many of the young people today are leaving the country for other countries where there is an opportunity to make a successful living. Greece was forced to bow down to Germanys austerity programs which first cut education ( they want dumb subservient Greeks ) and then forced Greece to triple the taxes to equal that of Germany while cutting Greek wages in half. This continues to this day resulting in people loosing the homes and properties that have been in families for generations. Most profitable Hotel chains do not pay their workers fair wages nor do they not pay their share into the employees health and retirement funds. If any employee speaks up about this issue they are blacklisted and will not find any work in the hotel industry. There are many jobs that do not pay overtime to their employees which violates EU rules.
    So I speak for them.

14. Mina, wishing you every success with the help of God and Jesus.. 🇬🇷🙏🏽🇬🇷..

15. Are they still arguing about the Islands?

16. I saw a documentary a few years ago made by Turkish people and the main line I remember from it, is this, Quote "the Greeks in Istanbul are both present and absent" End Quote. What they meant by present is the sheer amount of beautiful historical buildings the Greek community commissioned and built in Istanbul, from hundreds of years ago right up to the 1950s and especially the amazing turn of the century buildings in Fener, Beyoglu, along the Bosporus, Kuzguncuk and on the Princes Islands, and this is what largely gives Istanbul its attractive character and is admired by locals and tourists alike today, so their 'presence' is widely evident if you know the history and who's behind the construction of many of Istanbul's beautiful old buildings. Yet of course today they are absent because the community has been decimated. The industrious people, the 'lifeblood' of the City, who created these beautiful buildings were persecuted by pogroms, riotous attacks on them collectively. They were hounded by Turkish nationalists and forced to leave. Small consilation is that, although few people are left from this ancient community, the 'caretaker community' that does remain, with their foundations, has inherited and possess a vast amount of community-owned buildings, which are located in prime areas and sites and they amass to a great amount in real estate value, in the billions apparently.

17. Let me put in a few words the greco-turkish conflict.

    Greeks used to inhabit the Anatolian peninsula. Depending on the era some times were a majority, some not. This has to do with cultural and other issues. However, undisputedly there were Greeks from the coasts of Ionia to Cappadocia for at least three thousand years. Along with Armenians, Assyrians, Persians, Kurds etc. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, yes we shall have to go back then, Greeks were subjects of the Sultan. Citizens of lower class due to their religion, back then religion was a decisive factor for one's identity.

    Then let's make a historical leap of 4 centuries, and after several failed revolutions, in 1821. Greeks started gaining back their lands. For a century they were fighting the Turks, more or less, victoriously. Liberating ancestral lands that after centuries of occupation of a multi-ethnic empire there were also other ethnicities residing in them. The goal was always the liberation of the cradle of modern hellenism: Constantinople. Not the creation of a small state around the Peloponnese.

    Then in 1914 Turks, aided by German officers, perceived the idea that nobody would be fighting to liberate lands if these lands were deprived of one's ethnicity. If, for example all Greeks of Anatolia were exterminated, or at least a good percentage of them, then the Greeks of the already independent Greece would have no reason to fight in Anatolia. Hence the ethnic cleansing of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians that took place systematically and in a premeditated manner. At that point Greeks attempted to create a safe haven for the Greeks residing in Ottoman/Turkish territories around Smyrni. Greeks failed to this attempt and that led to the population exchange of 1923. When more than one million Greeks were exchanged for less than half a million muslims*. Ever since Turkey has not stopped trying to eradicate every other ethnicity within its borders. Borders that constantly they are trying to expand in their former ottoman glory. Either being Kurds in south eastern Anatolia or Greeks in northern Cyprus.

    Ever since we experience the attempt of the Turks to bully Greeks back to the status of the raya (literally meaning sheep in turkish, meaning subject/slave of the Sultan). And the Greeks attempting to utter that they want at least a recognition of the ethnic cleansing that they suffered.

    —–
    * Why did the treaty of Lausanne (1922) made a differentiation between a national and a religious identity? Because amongst the "muslims" were also converted Greeks (like the Cretan muslims) or other nationals. Greeks were understood as the ones that never changed the criteria of their identity: which is language and religion.

18. free new caledonia

19. same things happened to the turks living in greece

20. Congratulations for making known the pogroms that the Greek community has faced in Constantinople throughout the centuries by the Turkish authorities.

21. "Turkey "is armenian ,greek and Kurdish land☝️

22. Constantinople ☦️

23. Free New Caledonia and while at it give Marseilles to Greeks since it was established by Greeks

24. It’s because Greeks don’t have many kids that’s the problem. Even in Greece the population is dropping.

25. There is still a lot of Greeks in Istanbul

26. As a Greek, I thank you for the video. The truth is that Greece had and still has a brilliant and an extremely painful history, at the same time. Maybe one of the most painful for its citizens, in the world.
    At least, we thank god that amongst the "big powers" there is France, who was the best of all them, in the way she treated Greece. Thank you France for that video. France is the only intellectual, philellinic, peaceful big power towards Greece. 🇬🇷💙🇫🇷

27. Athens 🇹🇷

28. Once all of Turkey were a part of The Grecopersian Empire/The Median – Achaemenid Empire!

29. My grate grandparents where part of this community, until they were chased down by the then government and flew in Greece

30. You mean Orthodox turk/ orthodox SIavs caught in tension ?

31. We Turks and greeks are not fighting tho, this news is literally made to take peoples attantion away from more important stuff like the genocide in Gaza.

32. New Caledonia must be free from French imperialism. France should must respect international law, New Caledonians have self determination right.

33. The reduction to minimal of every collective of peoples of a certain religious belief was and is part of a plan that was devised during the fall of the ottomans and the rise of the Turks.
    Their ethnicity as in their origin and their ancestral roots and dna is another story,this is something the barbarians will never be able to exterminate.

34. Why do they look darker than the Turks ?? Ancient Greek were white !

35. Next make a video about what they've done to innocent Turkish people.

36. Investigate the racism suffered by the Turkish minority living in Greece!

37. Hellens must come back to Konstatinoupoli and make it properous and lively again.

38. Türkiye is a beautiful country ,its people are friendly

39. There was a pogrom in the 1950s. Then then invasion in Cyprus, etc etc. So it is not just 100 years ago. It keeps happening. Just in different more obscure ways. Not just in Turkey, but also Albania, Ukrraine and other places where the Greek diaspora used to be strong and influential. Yet nobody talks about "anti-hellenism". 😉

40. Due to fear, all family members of my grandmother were gradually forced to leave their houses in Istanbul and Prigipos island, just because they had Greek origins..

41. French propaganda again.

42. I like patriarch Bartholomew as a catholic

43. Ataturk dismantled the caliphate but did not dismantle the orthodox patriarchate

44. Greece has not implemented the 3 ECtHR judgments on the rights violations of the Turks of Western Thrace for 15 years! Their schools are being closed or deliberately left to decay due to lack of maintenance. Associations of Western Thrace Turks are being closed and their right to organize is being taken away! In short, Western Thrace Turks continue their struggle for existence in racist Greece.

45. You are lier. !!!