BULGARIA’S VIEW, OR LACK OF ONE…

Sofia Echo
Oct 22 2007
Bulgaria

The Armenian genocide issue has also had repercussions in Bulgaria,
though only on political level. Its highlights locally took place on
April 24 last and this year, the international day to commemorate
the mass killings and expulsion of Armenians from the then-Ottoman
Empire. Heated parliamentary debate put the Movement for Rights and
Freedoms (MRF), the party led and supported mainly by Bulgarians of
ethnic Turkish descent, at odds with ultra-nationalists Ataka and
members of other opposition parties.

On both occasions, MRF MPs refused to respect the one-minute silence
in honour of the massacre victims and walked out of the parliamentary
chamber. When the MRF MPs returned, the right-wing MPs in turn
ostentatiously walked out.

Opposition MPs, with Ataka at the forefront, accused the MRF of being
the conduit of Turkey’s national policy in Bulgaria. The MRF retorted
that Bulgarian Parliament cannot help but commemorate victims of wars
of all times, like those of, say, Somalia and Cambodia.

Both Novoto Vreme and Ataka have successfully tabled draft resolutions
to recognise the Armenian massacres as genocide. The resolutions,
though, have as yet not been put to the House for a vote.