site.btaUPDATED Interior Minister: "We Will Ensure Stable Security Environment at EU's External Borders"

Tuesday's meeting between the Ministers of Interior of Bulgaria and Turkiye Atanas Ilkov and Ali Yerlikaya and the Minister of Migration of Greece Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos is the first meeting within the framework of a tripartite mechanism for cooperation at the professional level signed in September 2023, Ilkov said, speaking to Bulgarian journalists after the meeting at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul.

The Interior Minister said the purpose of the meeting was to analyze and evaluate the activities in terms of countering illegal migration, drug trafficking and, in general, joint actions to counter organized crime.

"These meetings have been extremely effective in terms of overall coordination and the activities of all officials in the interior ministry," Ilkov said and announced that the next ministerial meeting is scheduled in Bulgaria.

"We need to be more operational in terms of the dynamic processes that are developing. This way we will be able to make our analyses and plan our follow-up actions regarding the processes that are developing both in Bulgaria and in the Middle East, namely - everything that is related to illegal migration and organized crime. We have to be very adequate to the circumstances that we are facing. So what we have pledged to our European partners and partners outside the EU is that we will ensure a stable security environment at the external borders of the European Union, in Bulgaria and in the Schengen area in general. This is the sign that we are giving on the basis of the good cooperation with Turkiye and the commitments that they have made to us and to our colleagues for an effective counteraction to these processes, so that our work will be easier in controlling the migration processes on the Bulgarian-Turkish border," the Interior Minister said.

Regarding developments in the Middle East and in particular after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, Ilkov said that according to the analysis made during the meeting today, there is no evidence to give grounds for concern that "the environment will certainly deteriorate".

"Nevertheless, all processes are being monitored, every piece of information received is being analysed, every change in the situation in the Middle East, so that we can plan our subsequent actions, so that we can be adequate in our reactions," the Bulgarian foreign minister said.

Minister Ilkov also said that Bulgaria and Turkiye continue to build on their cooperation on the basis of trust and the traditionally good relations established in recent years. He added that this was confirmed by the Turkish Minister of Interior.

"At today's meeting, we analyzed the whole situation and confirmed our intentions for firm measures against illegal migration and again emphasized the trust between the law enforcement structures in Bulgaria and Turkiye, as well as in Greece. You know that Greece is also a very important partner of ours. Even before our full membership in Schengen we had a great deal of support from Greece, so it remains a very important strategic partner of ours," the Interior Minister said.

In response to a question by BTA whether a new migrant wave could be expectedafter the latest developments in Syria, Minister Ilkov said that he does not expect such a wave.

According to him, if there were such a trend, "this migrant wave would already be a fact". 

"Already more than a month after the changes, after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime by the opposition, by now there should have been the first signs of an increased migrant flow to Turkiye and respectively to Bulgaria," Ilkov said.

According to him, there is no such phenomenon at the moment, on the contrary, many Syrians are expressing their desire to return from Turkiye to their homeland.

"The situation is being monitored by the services and based on it we can plan our actions related to such a process. So far there is nothing worrying," the Minister added.