“We want Greece to give the same rights as we provide to the Greek Orthodox Church and Greek minority to the Turks in Western Thrace,” Cavusoglu stated on Sunday during a private visit to the northern Greek region of Thrace, according to video footage released by Ankara’s foreign ministry.

The remarks by Turkey’s top diplomat, however, came just ahead of an official meeting on Monday with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias in Athens, prompting a swift reaction by the Greek foreign ministry.

“Turkey’s continuous efforts to distort reality, as well as its claims alleging lack of protection of these citizens’ rights or discrimination, are unfounded and are rejected in their entirety,” Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexandros Papaioannou said in a news release.

“The Muslim minority in Thrace has about 120,000 Greek inhabitants,” he said. “Turkey’s constant attempts to distort this reality, as well as the allegations of non-protection of the rights of these citizens, or of discrimination, are unfounded and are rejected in their entirety.”

Reporting on Cavusoglu’s Sunday visit to the city of Komotini in Thrace, Turkey’s official Anadolu News Agency said his delegation met with Ibrahim Serif, the chairman of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority Advisory Board and the elected mufti of Komotini, as well as Ahmet Mete, the elected mufti of Xanthi.

“The work of the muftis contributes greatly to the preservation and strengthening of the unity and solidarity of the Turkish minority,” Cavusoglu said in a Twitter post after the visit.

This is while Cavusoglu had previously said the aim of his visit was to prepare for a bilateral meeting between the Greek prime minister and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a NATO summit in Brussels on June 14.

Turkey has often insisted that Greece does not protect the rights of its Muslim minority, many of whom are of Turkish descent and Turkish-speaking.

The foreign ministers of the two neighboring nations also clashed openly during a press conference in Ankara last month following talks aimed at easing months of tension between the two historic rivals.

The status of Greece’s Muslim minority remains one of several points of contention between the members of the US-led NATO military alliance.

A century after the two countries fought a war that displaced more than a million people on both sides of the border, Turkey says the roughly 120,000-strong Muslim community in the region is a Turkish minority, a position rejected by Athens, which describes them as Greek Muslims.

Both NATO allies also remain at odds over issues ranging from competing maritime territorial claims in the Eastern Mediterranean region to the status of Cyprus and the treatment of refugee boats.They came close to armed conflict last year when naval vessels from each side maneuvered close to each other in disputed waters during a standoff over energy exploration.

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TEHRAN (ILNA) – During the first quarter of the current year, Iran’s exports to Greece reached to $ 1.7 million which has decreased by nearly 70%” an official said.

According To Iran News, The Secretary-General and member of the board of directors of Iran-Greece Joint Chamber of Commerce Majid Movafeq Qadiri said that Iran’s exports to Greece in the first quarter of 2019 were about $ 5.3 million; adding “Of course, this amount is very different compared to the first quarter of 2018 because during this period we exported more than $ 670 million to Greece.”

He confirmed that in the first quarter of 2020, Iran’s imports from Greece worth $ 2.7 million, a decrease of 60% compared to a similar period last year.

“The decline in trade relations between the two countries dates back to before of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on international trade and shows that sanctions have affected Iran’s exports more than imports,” he added.

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The Interior Ministry said the minors landed in Hanover on a flight from Athens. They were all tested for the coronavirus before departure and will remain in two-week quarantine before moving on to other German states.

Germany’s interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said the evacuation was “the result of months of preparation and intense talks with our European partners” and expressed hope that other countries would also begin taking in refugee children soon.

The children come from Afghanistan, Syria, and Eritrea. Four are girls and there are several siblings among the group.

Some of them have families waiting for them in Germany.

They were previously housed in refugee camps on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Samos, and Chios that have been criticized as unsuitable for children by human rights activists.

“The Greek government has been trying to sensitize other EU countries to (the plight) of the young children, who have fled war and persecution, to find new families and start a new life. I’m glad this program is finally being implemented,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotsakis told reporters at the Athens airport, where he met the departing children, alongside the German ambassador to Greece, Ernst Reichel, AP reported.

Mitsotakis added that he hoped over 1,500 minors would be relocated over the next months.

Germany pledged last month to take in at least 350 children living in Greek refugee camps as part of a joint European effort, but the plan has stalled in some countries due to the pandemic.

“Greece will continue to treat all … That arrives in our country with great sensitivity. But, at the same time, it has the obligation to guard and protect its borders. We have proven, as a country, that we can do both,” Mitsotakis said.

This was the second flight taking unaccompanied minor refugees to another European country. On Wednesday, 12 children traveled to Luxembourg.

According to the United Nations Secretary-General’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, there were over 5,200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in Greece in early April “in urgent need of durable solutions, including expedited registration, family reunification, and relocation.”

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According To Iran News, Greece transferred a dozen unaccompanied children from overcrowded migrant camps to Luxembourg on Wednesday, the first of more than 1,000 relocations that are being expedited amid concerns over the impact of the coronavirus on vulnerable groups.

Another group of 50 children is expected to fly from Athens to Germany on Saturday, and 20 more will head to Switzerland at a later date. Greece hopes to relocate some 1,600 unaccompanied minors in the coming months.

At least 5,200 migrant children from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and African countries currently live in Greece, many of them under harsh conditions in camps on islands in the Aegean.

Deputy migration minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos said that although the number of children was small, it sent a strong message for others to follow the example set by Luxembourg.

Greece, he said, is having to bear a disproportionate share of the refugee burden.

“Greece faces a crisis within a crisis; migration and the pandemic together,” he told state broadcaster ERT. “The combination makes an already difficult situation even more so, and more complex”, Reuters reported.

Having imposed a lockdown early on, Greece has weathered the coronavirus pandemic relatively well compared to many other European countries, with 2,170 confirmed cases and 101 deaths to date.

But its economy, which had been emerging from a decade-long recession following a debt crisis, is expected to suffer badly from a collapse in tourism bookings.

Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, called on Greece this week to release all unaccompanied minors, saying their detention in overcrowded camps or in police cells heightened the risk of them contracting COVID-19.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing conflicts and poverty in their countries used Greece as a springboard toward other European countries in 2015 and 2016, when an EU-brokered accord with Turkey all but halted the flow.

Turkey now hosts about 3.4 million refugees and migrants, while Greece has about 120,000 who are waiting for asylum applications to be processed. Many of them are in overcrowded camps on five islands in the Aegean Sea, where aid groups say living conditions are dire.

About a dozen European nations have expressed a willingness to take in a number of them on a voluntary basis, including Italy, Finland, Serbia, Ireland and Portugal, Greek officials say.

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According To Iran News, Greece on Thursday sealed off a migrant camp near Athens after 21 of its residents tested positive for the coronavirus — beginning with a new mother at an Athens hospital.

“From today the facility is placed under sanitary isolation for two weeks,” the migration ministry said in a statement.

Hours before the new cases were announced, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had praised health safeguards at Greek camps.

“I think we’re pretty good at contact tracing, and you can actually do contact tracing at the very beginning of an outbreak,” Mitsotakis told CNN.

“I think we have a very good track record of dealing with this problem in a very humane manner,” the PM said, referring to dire camp overcrowding.

“We will continue to keep a very, very close eye on what is happening in our camps… We’re ramping up medical facilities,” he said, AFP reported.

The woman from the Ritsona camp, reportedly of African origin, tested positive after giving birth at an Athens hospital this week.

The ministry said that of 63 people subsequently tested at Ritsona, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Athens, 20 were positive but without symptoms.

No staff were found to be carrying the virus, it said.

The new mother’s case was the first among asylum-seekers living in a Greek camp. The state has run several vaccination campaigns in past years, but no screening had been done for the present virus.

All access to Ritsona camp has been restricted and food will be delivered to the residents, the migration ministry said. Additional medical staff will be sent to the area and all residents will be screened, it added.

As of 1600 GMT on Wednesday, Greece’s population of 11 million had recorded 50 deaths and 1,415 cases of novel coronavirus.

In camps on the Greek mainland and islands, where tens of thousands of asylum seekers live in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, regulations have been announced to keep residents as far from the local population as possible.

The migration ministry on Thursday said that another asylum-seeker living in a flat in the northern city of Kilkis had tested positive after giving birth at a local clinic.

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