Panagia Soumela Monastery in Trapezounta.
Dr. Ioannis Mazis, Professor of Economic Geography and Geopolitics at the University of Athens and President of the Department of Turkish Studies and Contemporary Asian Studies, urged Greece to open three new consulates in Turkey.
Speaking on Kontra on May 29, Mazis said that an appropriate response by Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias to his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu should be to demand the opening of new consulates in Turkey.
Specifically, Mazis mentions Trapezounta (Τραπεζούντα, Turkish: Trabzon), Imvros (Ίμβρος, Turkish: Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Τένεδος, Turkish: Bozcaada).
Trapezounta is the main city of the historically Greek region of Pontos on Turkey's southeastern Black Sea coast.
During the Greek Genocide (1913-1923), Ottoman-Turkish forces exterminated 330,000 Greeks in Pontos, with the remaining Christians either forced to go to Greece or becoming Turkified.
Today, a Greek Muslim minority of several thousands who speak Pontian Greek as a native language remains in Pontos.
The Turkish state officially denies the existence of Greek Muslims in Pontos.
The islands of Tenedos and Imvros are also historically Greek islands, but state persecution and pressure has reduced the Greek population into becoming a minority in their own native homeland.
Both islands should be autonomous from the Turkish state, but Ankara has reneged on its commitments to this as outlined in the Treaty of Lausanne.
READ MORE: FM Dendias: Greek minority of Imvros, Tenedos and Constantinople will be supported by us.
