Next Monday, we’ll know how former Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ hollow accusations that the Turkish Consulate in Komotini (Gümülcine) was conducting an election campaign in favor of two ethnic Turkish candidates of the Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance (SYRIZA) worked out.

Mitsotakis not only lied about the consulate, libeled and slandered SYRIZA but also once again denied the existence of the Turkish minority in the Western Thrace.

In an interview published in the "Proto Thema" newspaper last week, former Prime Minister and New Democracy (NDP) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis claimed that the Turkish Consulate General in Komotini intervened in favor of the SYRIZA candidate Ferhat Özgür in Rodopi. Mitsotakis unscrupulously said that he was talking about "a religious minority."

Snap parliamentary elections were held in Greece on May 21. Mitsotakis's center-right NDP routed its main rivals, unexpectedly increasing its vote share but falling just short of an outright majority.

In those polls, the Turkish minority voters elected a total of 4 members of parliament in Xanthi (Iskeçe) and Rodopi; and probably next week, they will send even more Turks and other Muslims to the parliament as members of SYRIZA.

Of course, the Turkish Consulates in Xanthi and Rodopi region are the places to be for Turks and other minorities since the Treaty of Lausanne, a peace treaty ending World War I for Türkiye, left the western portion of Thrace in the hands of Greece in 1923.

Türkiye's watchful eye on minorities

Türkiye has always kept a watchful eye on Turks and other Muslim minorities in the region because Greek administrations tried to eliminate the ethnic identity of Turks and always tried interfering with their religious affairs.

Even Mitsotakis, last week, in his slanderous remarks about SYRIZA, accusing the party of "allowing another state to interfere in Greece's internal affairs," called Rodopi Turks "Greek Muslims" and accused them of "creating problems in Greece."

Even though the Lausanne Treaty guaranteed ethnic and religious minority rights, various Greek governments passed ludicrous laws excluding Turkish, Macedonian and Bulgarian ethnic minorities and Muslims from public and political life.

It was late prime minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis – the father of the current leader of New Democracy, Kyriakos – who abolished the exclusionary laws and regulations of all minorities in Greece.

Konstantinos Mitsotakis was arrested in 1967 by the military junta but managed to escape to Türkiye with the help of the then-Turkish Foreign Minister Ihsan Sabri Çağlayangil and lived in exile with his family in Istanbul and Paris, until his return to Greece in 1974, following the restoration of democracy.

Kyriakos was six months old when his family escaped to Türkiye, and later he ungratefully and shamelessly described the first six months of his life as "political imprisonment." He was being breastfed as a "political prisoner,"... But his father was not.

Konstantinos Mitsotakis had a special place in the collective mind of Turkish people, making it all the more difficult to see the son of such an honorable statesman acting bizarrely.

It is possible to see why Kyriakos has been barking at all the trees he can find. As the May election did not result in any party gaining a majority, and no coalition government could be formed by any of the parties eligible to do so, Mitsotakis called for another snap election on June 25.

Thanks to the Byzantine machinations (or the system called "reinforced proportionality") of the election law, next week, the party that would get the majority votes will have an extra 20 seats – which would probably be Mitsotakis’s NDP as it had 40% of the total votes compared to Syriza’s 20%.

Annoyed by Mitsotakis’s unwarranted nonsensical hysteria, Syriza Chairperson Alexis Tsipras spoke about the mafia logic of Mitsotakis:

"These days, we see wretchedness on the part of Mr. Mitsotakis and New Democracy. It plays with our sensitive national issues. For as long as I can remember, I am 49 years old; for 49 years, our fellow Muslim citizens in Rodopi have always chosen some Muslims from all parties according to their own criteria," he said.

"When chosen from the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and NDP, there is no problem, but when chosen from SYRIZA, why is there a problem? And it is a shame to create tensions, to affect stability and social peace in such a sensitive area, for around 15,000 votes. ‘If you don’t vote ND, you will have a hard time’... This is mafia logic," Tsipras added.

The sister of Mr. Mitsotakis has gotten into local politics against minorities. She threatened the minorities that they would not have a good time if they did not vote for her brother. With their baseless accusations, the Mitsotakis brother-and-sister team displayed disrespect for the will of the Turkish minority.

There were many issues to be discussed in the television debate between the leaders of the five parties represented in the parliament after the May 21 election, but it was canceled because of the tragic shipwreck off the coast of Greece.

Among them were the plans the parties offered for health, education and the economy, but the most important were the conservatives’ policies regarding minorities in Greece in general and Mitsotakis’s denial of Turks in particular.

'Greece belongs to Greeks'

Even though almost half of the 15 far-right parties that wanted to run in Greece's May elections were disqualified by the Supreme Court, Mitsotakis adopted their narration of "Greece belongs to Greeks" to get their votes.

His denial of his own father’s inclusive politics that embraced all minorities, ethnic or religious, in Greece and his accusations and hysteria about the Turkish Consulate and Syriza could be stemming from the fact that two left blocs could secure enough votes for a coalition government.

A series of scandals such as a phone-tapping scandal that has been dubbed the "Greek Watergate," the outrage over the Tempe railway tragedy in February, when the collision of two trains left 57 dead, were already on the list of mismanagements of the ND, were accounts on his political ledger.

The survivors’ accusations that the Greek coast guard was directly involved and might have caused the recent deadly shipwreck off the southern coast of Greece could be on Mitsotakis, too. He developed the strange system of pushing back the ships carrying refugees and human traffickers, which have caused countless deaths of innocent people.

With the summer season, Aegean tourism is in full swing; we don’t need to raise tensions in the area. Quite the contrary, Greece needs strong sources of revenue, to promote the country peacefully. Both countries are fresh from elections; it is only the right time to make the Aegean the sea of friendship.

One can only hope that Mitsotakis will ease after the elections, and he will rationally consider the rhetorical question President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan voiced:

"Why is Greece arming its military that fast? Because it gets those arms for free from the United States – or it really feels that Greece needs them."