KOMOTINI, Greece

Members of the European Parliament on Friday addressed a parliamentary question to the EU Commission on the education rights of Turkish minority children in Western Thrace.

MEPs Lorant Vincze, Francois Alfonsi, Herbert Dorfmann and Yana Toom signed and submitted the question in which they stressed that the number of bilingual Turkish elementary schools have reduced in Western Thrace.

The question also noted that there was not a single bilingual minority preschool in that area and that Greek authorities did not reply to the Turkish community's demands.

"Depriving children of the Turkish community from preschool education in their primary language creates an inequality in terms of education," the question read.

The MEPs asked the commission about the measures to be taken in order to guarantee those children's rights.

*Writing by Nur Asena Erturk in Ankara