Erdoğan backs Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu after argument with Greece's Dendias

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has backed Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu after his argument with Nikos Dendias, his counterpart from Greece, at a joint press conference last night (April 15).

"Our foreign minister put Dendias in his place. He couldn't be softer. That wouldn't suit us as a nation, " he told reporters after Friday prayer in İstanbul.

Dendias yesterday met with Erdoğan and Çavuşoğlu at the Presidential Complex in Ankara. A joint press conference by the ministers after the meeting became tense after Dendias said sanctions would be applied to Turkey if it "continued violating Greece's sovereignty."

After Dendias' remarks, the two top diplomats exchanged accusations on a number of issues, including the Eastern Mediterranean dispute and minorities' rights.

Erdoğan continued the debate today, saying that Athens has "no right" to appoint the chief Islamic cleric, or mufti, of Muslims living in Greece according to the Treaty of Lausanne.

"How can you do that? We don't appoint the patriarch," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in the metropolis Istanbul.

The president asserted that Greece does not pay the "necessary care" for the citizenship of the 150,000 Turks living in Western Thrace, most of whom are Muslim.

He stressed that only officials of this group, such as muftis and imams, could choose a chief mufti in Greece. (DŞ/VK)