First step for the ownership of the Ottoman cemetery in Xanthi
Türkiye is pursuing the destruction of a Turkish cemetery in Xanthi in Western Thrace under the pretext of a football field.
In March of this year, excavation work was started with construction equipment in order to build a football field on the land of the Ottoman period Turkish cemetery in the Horozlu (Petinos) village of Xanthi in Western Thrace.
Answering a parliamentary question about the developments, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, “The tombstones of the Ottoman period, which were unearthed during the excavations, were temporarily kept in a warehouse. In order to create a permanent solution, necessary applications have been made to the local authorities for the ownership/management of the cemetery land to be undertaken by a board of trustees composed of our Western Thrace Turkish minority kin.”
