/ world today news/ In the end, it is not clear from Mr. Mestan’s statements at his infamous press conference in BTA whether he is really a “naive romantic sapper” who stepped on a “Russian mine” or simply stepped on a “watermelon rind”. Whether it was self-inflicted by jumping on opportunities, or whether it was placed on him at the right time in the right place is another question.
It is sad to be convinced for the umpteenth time how unflattering our politicians can look in complex situations, especially when they fall out of the circle of the “privileged”. It is sad to watch live and “the same as our politicians, the same as the journalists”. Rejected by his own, and Mr. Mestan has finally convinced himself that reality is quite different than it seems to them in the comfort of power or always around it. Perhaps it would have been better if he had decided to remain silent not for 12 days, but for much longer, to realize that the retroactive admission of such facts as “I was a pawn” or “I was placed, not chosen” and “I aimed the return of DPS to power through the front door, and not through business interests, which is possible only if the party’s political field is freed from the dangerous lines with which the public image as a large-corporate party connected to Russian interests has grown” is a pure test ” harakiri”.
Not for anything else, but because the Bulgarians, including “my people”, as the associate and deputy Hafazov expressed about the Bulgarian citizens with Turkish ethnicity, are always suspicious of statements that cover up real reasons or are just PR actions to polish a desired image . In this case, the image of a victim who had noble Euro-Atlantic ideas, but the “Russophiles” did not allow them to be fully realized. Demeaning certain processes to the shaky taking of sides in geopolitical clashes, in the case between Russia and Turkey, brings nothing but another division of our people, and now also among Bulgarian citizens who profess the Muslim religion. Moreover, in such situations there is always something “happening behind the scenes”, which in most cases does not become known to the public, but it can be judged by signals, seemingly surprising actions or simply by dropped words.
Why is Mr. Mestan closely guarded, and not since yesterday? Why did someone somewhere decide at some point to withdraw his security, and he “immediately” sought refuge in the residence of the Turkish ambassador, where, according to his own admissions, at a pre-arranged dinner, an organization was arranged for high-ranking Turkish representatives to visit local memorial services and celebrations in a mixed region like Kardzhali, and then he hid with friends there, somewhere in the Bulgarian countryside, Mr. Mestan does not find it necessary to explain. The ordinary Bulgarian can hardly explain how a party leader can arrange the visit of foreign senior representatives of a given government, including the foreign minister and deputy prime minister, and this happens almost behind the backs of the bodies authorized for the purpose, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Even if the visit is legitimized as private. Let our ambassador in Ankara go on a private visit to Southeast Turkey.
It was also not clear why our foreign minister found it sufficient to “advise the Turkish ambassador” of “impermissible actions”. It is well known that EU membership takes away part of our sovereignty. But showing a sense of inferiority, almost vassalage, when it comes to Turkey is somehow not easy to swallow. Even more so when just a month ago you defended precisely Turkish interests in Brussels by insisting on a security zone on the Syrian-Turkish border, lowering the requirement for visas, 3 billion in compensation for refugees, etc. And in a period when Turkish media write that “the agreements with Merkel and the EU are currently being canceled. Schengen is falling away, according to ex-president Sarkozy, and only one open chapter in the negotiation process does not open the entrance to the EU”.
A number of Turkey watchers say in plain text that Turkey will neither be visa-free anytime soon, nor will it receive money from Brussels. Then what “strategic partnership” and recommendations for an active dialogue with Ankara does Mr. Mestan convince us of? We lived with the thought that our relations with Turkey were basically good-willed, regardless of century-old unresolved problems. It did not seem to us that there was a “perception of Turkey as a former Ottoman ruler” among the Bulgarians. This is especially the case in the “Strategic Depth” of Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu, which has recently become notorious in our country, where precisely the perception of the former Ottoman provinces as a field for the protection of primordial Turkish interests is defended in a particularly attractive way.
I make a lot of noise with the so-called “soft power” and the stretching of an umbrella over the population of the Balkans, which professes the Muslim religion. But to claim that “my people” had no rights in Bulgaria, and to be proud of a case filed in Strasbourg for using the Turkish language, is simply nonsense. Ask the more mature Bulgarians how annoyed they were during the time of the sotsa, when young people from the Rhodopes or North-Eastern Bulgaria, i.e. from the mixed regions, entered higher education without entrance exams or with low grades. Now, thanks to this education, some of them have settled their lives in Turkey quite well. It was seen as a way to be inclusive without underestimating events that did indeed bring bitterness among these fellow citizens of ours. Everyone pays for their mistakes, but acting in the direction of division cannot be accepted by thinking people in our country today.
To admit only after a “ritual execution” that he caused “the termination of Oresharski’s mandate, which was the goal of smooth stability”, and “I was the first to declare that “South Stream” is only possible with the agreement of the European partners” , if it turns out that there is no “South Stream” and it was proclaimed “Turkish”, somehow it doesn’t sound Bulgarian-philic either. Our citizens in general never understood who and why lobbied in one direction or another, but their self-confidence as Bulgarians received a new blow. Someone, somewhere decides something in someone’s interest, and here the persons appointed as managers are playing trump cards. How not to hate and spit on the country!
Bill wanted Russia to return to the field of international law because of the annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian crisis and the assassination of Nemtsov, as well as to restore the dialogue with Ankara. These are statements that can be found in a number of statements by Turkish and Western rulers, but if one looks deeper into the analyses, it will dawn on him that everyone is protecting interests, including oligarchic ones, i.e. corporate, and the visionary and small ones keep “at arm’s length”, because geopolitics is changeable and crises not only occur, but become more and more unpredictable. Not the call to re-read the declaration regarding the shooting down of the Russian plane by Turkey, which Mr. Mestan read in the National Assembly, but Dogan’s speech should be read under a magnifying glass, however strewn with colloquial-cynical words given the situation, because there is no mention of taking Russia’s side, but only an indication of the complex situation in which the world, the EU, Russia/Turkey relations are, and this cannot help but bring negatives, to put it mildly, to Bulgaria.
The situation around us is explosive, but where is the Euro-Atlantic alliance? ALDE stood behind Dogan, whatever Mr. Mestan says, and the rest is our internal business. Lots of hype, little truth, more behind the scenes action. With which Turkey does Mr. Mestan want a strategic partnership? With Erdogan’s? Well, Bulgaria has not shown an aggressive policy in any aspect towards this neighbor of ours, regardless of the fact that our citizens hardly approve of the gradual Islamization of the country. Yes, there are our emigrants there, who for the most part are secular people and most of them vote for the opposition NRP with leader Kalachdaroolu. But the leaders of the peasant communities there are directly connected to Erdogan’s ruling AKP, and it is no secret that their influence is being used in this direction. Some of these leaders were around Mr. Mestan along with the Turkish ambassador at the last celebrations in Kardzhali. And whether he relies on such influence in the next elections, the future will show.
It cannot be achieved with Turkish funds alone. After all, our country has somehow turned its back on these fellow citizens, because they also have Bulgarian passports, including their children, born there, and they don’t know Bulgarian. Yes, they are worldly people, most of them, but their fear is not small. It is not easy in a new, Islamized Turkey. Especially when it goes to war again with the Kurds, arrests journalists, supporters of the US-based preacher Fethullah Gülen, pursues a more aggressive policy in the Middle East and enters foreign territorial space without regard to international law, and all this cannot be it is not taken into account when analyzing the relationship between any country and Erdogan’s country. Dogan also says that the EU is in crisis and is getting even more complicated. Is it true? Is it still necessary to discuss who is wrong and who is right? And there is no doubt that Mr. Mestan’s press conference was a media event that even the prime minister could envy.
The question is whether it is worth giving more publicity to his justifications, and after 19 years in a party like DPS, to see that Dogan is right and that “politics should be dealt with by people who understand policy”? And this applies not only to DPS. Because someone recently recalled an old Turkish proverb: “Aza bak, syungle durvran”, ie. “Watch the mouth, then cook the bayonet”. And did anyone remember that all our new highways are mainly directed to Istanbul, and those to Europe are lagging behind? Even those that should connect Sofia with Skopje and Albania? Or via Belgrade to Budapest? Where is Euro-Atlantic cooperation in this case? Many examples, but Mr. Mestan’s complaint turned out to be more important and we will discuss it for at least another 3 days. Right?
#Russian #melon #peel
