site.btaTurkish Ambassador Gokce: Ankara Hasn't Asked Any Bulgarian Politician to Take Sides

Turkish Ambassador Gokce: Ankara Hasn't Asked Any Bulgarian Politician to Take  Sides

Sofia, February 20 (BTA) - Interviewed by bTV on Saturday, Turkish Ambassador Suleyman Gokce said that Turkey had never asked any Bulgarian politician to take sides regarding any political or social figure in Bulgaria.

The Turkish diplomat was asked to comment on statements by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov that shortly before Christmas, the Prime Minister and the President of Turkey exerted serious pressure on him to intervene in the conflict within the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) on the side of its then leader
Lyutvi Mestan.

Mestan was ousted from the party following a speech of MRF's honorary chairman and former long-serving leader Ahmed Dogan, in which he slammed his successor for working to bring Bulgaria too close to Turkey and for a declaration on behalf of the party in support of Ankara amid the row over the downing of a Russian
 bomber last November.

Mestan said that a few days after the speech, Delyan Peevski, MP of the MRF and business owner, called him with an ultimatum to step down. When Mestan refused to do so, he was left without bodyguards and, fearing for his life, spent a few hours at the Turkish Embassy.   

The Turkish Ambassador firmly denied that he himself or other figures at the Embassy had influenced the election of an MRF leader.

He stated repeatedly that his country had not interfered in Bulgaria's internal affairs. Turkey supported Bulgaria's and Romania's NATO membership and proved to be not only a neighbour and a good friend, but a NATO ally and EU partner as well.

Ambassador Gokce described as "a politically motivated initiative" Parliament's decision on Friday to set up an ad  hoc committee of inquiry to investigate all facts and circumstances relating to claims that Russia and Turkey have interfered in Bulgaria's internal affairs. He said, however, that such actions are every parliament's prerogative.

The Turkish diplomat said relations between Sofia and Ankara are very good.

Asked if Ahmed Dogan and Delyan Peevski have been barred from entering Turkey, Ambassador Gokce again said that he could neither confirm nor deny this. No official statement has been made by a Turkish state institution, he said, adding that he did not know either of the two.

The Ambassador also firmly denied comments that Mestan's new party, Democrats for Responsibility, Freedom and Tolerance (DOST), had been "conceived" at the Turkish Embassy, and added that press stories are not necessarily true or entirely true.