Bulgarian Turks to try to cross for vote despite government ban

HUNDREDS of ethnic Turks from Bulgaria who settled in the occupied areas in the 1980s will today attempt to cross the checkpoints in order to vote at the Bulgarian embassy, despite government insistence that they would not let them through.

Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said the Bulgarians were being treated as settlers and would not be allowed through.

“Years ago, (former Turkish Cypriot leader) Mr (Rauf) Denktash had illegally allowed the transfer of Turks from Bulgaria and their settlement in the occupied area of Cyprus,” Chrysostomides said.

The Bulgarians left at a time when their community came under a campaign of pressure to assimilate by the then communist authorities.

“This number of Turks from Bulgaria is included in the settlers category,” he added.
The Bulgarian embassy has been informed that the provisions of the Green Line regulation could not be applied in the case of the Bulgarians, the spokesman said.
“In this case, Cypriot law will be fully enforced,” he added.

Chrysostomides said the embassy conveyed the government’s position to the Bulgarian government and there was no reaction.

There are a few hundred Bulgarians of Turkish origin in the north.

Asked whether Bulgaria was implicated in the crime of settlement, Chrysostomides said: “I do not think we could go so far. On the contrary I think the occupying forces have the responsibility for their transfer.”

The spokesman reiterated that illegal settlement was a crime against humanity and was condemned by the new charter of the International Criminal Court.

As such, no settler gains an automatic right to stay in the occupied past of the Republic of Cyprus, he added.

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