Pomak leader warns of growing Turkish influence

As we walked through the narrow streets of Xanthi in northern Greece, we often heard Turkish being spoken in conversations. We sat at a cafe and talked about the community Imam Ahmet represents, the 40,000 Pomaks who are constantly trying to find their voice as a minority within a minority.

Ahmet, who is the head of the Panhellenic Association of Pomaks and editor of the first newspaper in the Pomak language, Zagalisa, sat down with Kathimerini recently to talk about this endeavor, but also about the enduring shortcomings of the Greek state, which has allowed Turkey to penetrate the Pomak community, and the electoral peculiarities of Thrace, which only recently appeared in the news again.

"Turkey claims that there is a minority of 130,000 individuals and that this minority is Turkish," says Ahmet. "It bundles together me, a Pomak, with the Gypsies of Drosero - i.e....