/ world today news/ Despite the tension between Brussels and Ankara in recent days, the European Union has not announced that it is abandoning the intention announced earlier this month to speed up negotiations on Turkey’s eventual accession to the community. However, accession requires the consent of each member country, including Bulgaria.
An opportunity opens up for our country to ask Ankara about the compensation of over 400,000 Bulgarians expelled from Thrace and Asia Minor after the tragic wars for us from the beginning of the last century. The question can be put sideways – either Ankara resolves the issue in a way acceptable to us, or Sofia will not say “yes” to the acceptance of Turkey. The problem is, however, whether our foreign policy will decide on such a move and whether there are conditions to hope for a favorable outcome.
The legal basis on which attempts were made in the distant past to resolve property relations between Bulgaria and Turkey are several: the Treaty of Constantinople for Peace of 29.09.1913, the Agreement of Edirne of 15.11.1913 and the Angora (Ankara) Treaty and the agreements signed to it dated 18.10.1925.
Volumes of analysis, evaluation, and commentary could be written about these documents. The main thing about them is that they fully serve the interests of the Turkish state, which took advantage of the difficult situation and weakness of Bulgaria after the Inter-Allies and the First World War and actually legitimized a crime that was unprecedented in the Balkans and Europe in terms of scale and cruelty. It was later classified as genocide in an International Convention of 1948, which has not been repealed until now.
None of the mentioned three treaties take into account the fact of the slaughter of 60,000 people and the confiscation of nearly 4 million acres of private Bulgarian land belonging to the over 400,000 Bulgarians expelled from Thrace and Asia Minor. The brazen thing in this case is that Turkey considers them to be emigrants and not refugees, which essentially renders any talks within the framework of these documents meaningless. By the way, the pipes of the gas pipeline, which Putin and Erdogan agreed on on December 1, will be laid precisely on the private property of hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian citizens who are descendants of the victims of these tragic events.
That is why I firmly believe that the property side of the Thracian question is a derivative of a crime against humanity, for which, according to another special International Convention from 1968, there is no statute of limitations. It is on this new legal basis that Turkey, which is considered the successor of the Ottoman Empire, must take the historical, political, moral and material responsibility and resolve the issue through direct bilateral negotiations, whose mandate should be to resolve this issue alone. Because the agreement of the Bulgarian authorities to include him in the common basket of bilateral relations is a betrayal of the memory of nearly half a million of our countrymen-victims, as well as of nearly one million of their heirs.
Without politicking and party bias, without ultimatums and threats, but clearly and firmly enough, we must embark on a new course in our relations with Turkey. A course of equality, mutual understanding and consideration of the real rights and interests of each of the partners, and not just for one, as it has been until now. The squealing and wagging of the tail makes us laughable both domestically and internationally. Moreover, Bulgaria always positively resolves the issues raised by Turkey.
Centuries ago, Bulgaria took on itself the heavy blow of the Ottomans, and Europe should be grateful to us for that. Now our country is again on the main line – this time on the pressures of neo-Ottomanism. A positive resolution of the Thracian question may overturn this conclusion of mine.
Bulgaria does not have any opportunities to influence the process of Turkey’s admission to the EU. The state authority, which refused to condemn with an official declaration the genocide against the 60,000 defenseless men, women and children massacred by the Turkish army in 1913, as well as the subsequent expulsion of nearly half a million of our compatriots from Thrace and Asia Minor and the confiscation of nearly 4 million .acre of golden land in the period up to 1925 showed that it was impotent when it came to the Bulgarian national interest. Our country is perhaps the only one in the world with two national ethnic models – historical and real. One model states that the Bulgarian nation consists of Bulgarians, Bulgarian Roma, Bulgarian Turks and other smaller ethnic groups, whose individual rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and state law enforcement agencies. The other model is that of Ahmed Dogan, according to whom the Bulgarian nation is formed by ethnic Bulgarians and by strategic Turkish, Roma and other minorities, who should have separate, collective rights, and the DPS should protect them and determine what should happen in Bulgaria. The first model requires unity and integration around what connects us – Bulgaria and its interests. According to the second, the main thing is what separates us – religion and customs. Accordingly, one must go towards autonomous rights and some of them are already a fact. Administratively, entire regions do not comply with national history, they represent vilayets in themselves, in which there is no Bulgarian authority. There are also ministries where if you don’t know Turkish you don’t have a job there. Thus, according to the wishes of this power, Bulgarian history is rewritten, the heroic struggle of whole generations of our ancestors for survival and freedom is erased. This is also the way to territorial autonomy. The re-Islamization of Bulgaria is an inexorable fact against which the authorities essentially do not fight. Because until the Dogan model is recognized as anti-state, the government cannot have the relevant by-laws for action. And it is not bad for the president, the prime minister, the speaker of the parliament, the leaders of the political parties and movements to answer the question of whether Bulgaria will follow Doganovski or Dogan and his protégés will follow the Bulgarian path and what is better for the country.
In other words, while the making of state decisions depends on the DPS and the Turkish Party of Kasim Dal, which joined the Reform Bloc, the above-mentioned leaders of the current ruling stratum are in a stalemate.
Hence the historical responsibility and guilt of the party leaders who brought things to this state. My sad conclusion is that for 25 years in the country, countless “politicians” have turned like a film reel, but not a single statesman has been seen. Things with Turkey are extremely complicated. Its strategy, regardless of which political force is in power, is unchanging – to build such economic, military and political capacities that will enable it to play an ever greater role regionally and strategically. In regional they are already a fact. In strategic – almost. Turkey’s great independence in relation to allied relations with NATO and the USA is important for this. When things are not in favor of the Turkish state, governments say no to it. So do the Greeks. And Bulgaria? Many michiturkas also appeared in this nodal matter.
Turkey is interested in cooperation with the EU, but it is not crucial for it. And the membership even less, because it can only tie her hands for the ambitious plans of the newly elected President Recep Erdogan. This man is a true statesman and will stop at nothing to bring Turkey into world affairs as one of the main or near independent factors. These cases with the problem of the so-called Islamic State, the special importance of the country within the framework of relations with Russia, the USA, the EU, the conflict in the Arab world, BRICS plus the pursuit of neo-Osmanism as an official state policy.
At this stage, Bulgaria has neither internal nor external levers for influence. I have negotiated with Turkish colleagues during one of the difficult periods of our bilateral relations and I know from experience that they only accept the language of irrefutable arguments and that of fait accompli. They keep their word and respect the partner only if he has a worthy position. If he starts to get quiet, he’s done for. Here lies the answer to the question – about the Bulgarian legal grounds for seeking a just solution to the Thracian problem.
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Lyubomir Shopov, diplomat and one of the best connoisseurs and analysts of Turkey in our country. Our south-western neighbor and the Bulgarian Turks were his portfolios in various state institutions where he worked. He is the author of several books on Bulgarian and Turkish foreign policy.
Sofia / Bulgaria
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