site.btaPM Meets with ABV Party to Discuss Bulgarian Position on Macedonia Naming

ESD 12:43:31 04-09-2018

SN1240ES.108
108 - POLITICS - PM - ABV - MACEDONIA - NAMING

PM Meets with ABV Party to Discuss
Bulgarian Position on
Macedonia Naming


Sofia, September 4 (BTA) - Prime Minister Boyko Borissov met here Tuesday with the leadership of the ABV party at their request to discuss Bulgaria's position in the Macedonian naming issue. ABV expressed concern over proposed naming options and called for adopting a new document to clarify some aspects of a Bulgarian-Macedonian Friendship Treaty which bother them.

ABV leader Roumen Petkov told reporters after the meeting that they expressed "strong objections against the name of 'Ilinden Macedonia' and concerns over 'Northern Macedonia'.

He also said that his party calls for a debate to help reach "a concerted Bulgarian position on defining the concept of 'common history".

Petkov referred to a longstanding controversy between Bulgaria and Macedonia about the history that the two countries share, which the Friendship Treaty is expected to end.

"It is unacceptable for us when political factors in Macedonia turn their back on the common past and the common Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising. It is also unacceptable when members of the joint Bulgarian-Macedonian commission limit the shared history to the time of the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman domination," said Petkov.

The Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising was an organized revolt against the Ottoman Empire, prepared and carried out by the predominantly Bulgarian Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization with considerable support from local Bulgarian peasants. It managed to place the Macedonian question on the agenda of international diplomacy.

Petkov also said that while ABV wish to support Macedonia and its Euro-Atlantic future, it believes that the Bulgarian position should be that "this future is unthinkable without the truth about our common history and with travestying historical facts and stealing the Bulgarian history".

ABV founder and former President Georgi Purvanov added that his party's position on the Treaty with Macedonia is that it is "unquestionably positive" but only if "steps are taken in anticipation of possible adverse developments".

He went on to recall that in 2017 Macedonian Prime Minister "forgot to mention key Bulgarian figures" as he was naming the heroes of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, while ABV's position is that this uprising was "essentially Bulgarian, which is proven by a myriad of documents".

"We expect this theft of Bulgarian history to continue, especially after the signing of the deal with Greece whereby Skopje gave up its antiquity-based vision of its history," said Purvanov.

He said this "definitely calls for a new interpretation of the Treaty with Macedonia, especially the part concerning the common history". "We need a new joint document to define the concept of 'common history'. The new text could say, roughly, that we have a common history rooted in the Middle Ages and going through the common struggles during the Revival, including the early decades of the 20th century and the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising. The common thing is the Bulgarian self-awareness of the population in these parts of Bulgaria and Macedonia," said Purvanov. LN/



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