site.btaBulgaria's Foreign Ministry, Deputy PM Karakachanov React to Statement by Serbian Foreign Minister

Sofia, January 5 (BTA) - In a position published on Sunday, the
Bulgarian Foreign Ministry says that the Bulgarian government
defends and will continue to defend the rights of Bulgarian
communities abroad, and not just in Serbia. This is also one of
the priorities of the Foreign Ministry, the position reads.

The Foreign Ministry's position was released in reaction to an
interview of Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic for Serbia's
RTS national television on Sunday, where he reportedly said that
 the Bulgarian minority in Serbia was only 0.26 per cent of the
country's population and yet Bulgaria raises the matter of the
Bulgarian national minority's rights at every meeting of the
European Council.
  
The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry's position reads further that
when it comes to Serbia, Bulgaria insists on nothing more than
Serbia observing its own constitution and laws on minorities, as
 well as its commitments within the pre-accession process.  

Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Krassimir
Karakachanov also reacted to Dacic's statement. In a Facebook
post on Sunday, the Deputy PM wrote:  "This concerns the rights
of those Bulgarians in the territories which Serbia occupied
illegally in 1919 after the Neuilly Treaty. Of those Bulgarians
who Serbia forbid from calling themselves Bulgarians until 1944
and then tormented, oppressed and forced to leave their
birthplaces. The Bulgarian State will not stop defending the
rights of the children of its compatriots to study with
textbooks in Bulgarian. It will not yield an inch from the
requirements for the observation of all freedoms and rights that
 the Bulgarian national minority in neighbouring Serbia is
entitled to."
   
NV/DS