TURKISH PM ASKS HOH PARTY OF BULGARIA NOT TO MARGINALIZE
VARNA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Ahmet Dogan, the leader of Rights and Freedoms Party (HOH) of Bulgaria, to meet expectations of the entire Bulgarian people and not to marginalize, sources said on Wednesday.
Sources said that Erdogan met Dogan in Bulgarian capital of Sofia and asked HOH leader not to limit his party only with the aspirations of ethnic Turks living in Bulgaria, but to meet expectations of the entire Bulgarian people; and not to marginalize themselves.
Dogan said that his party was trying to do what Erdogan asked for.
Recalling that his party won the elections in 29 out of 264 municipalities in Bulgaria, Dogan said that HOH was a partner of the Bulgarian government and actually holding two ministerial posts, i.e. agriculture ministry and ministry responsible for disasters.
Erdogan also met Bulgarian Parliament Speaker Ognyan Gerdzhikov before he proceeded to Varna. Erdogan and Gerdzhikov discussed bilateral relations, how to increase the volume of bilateral trade, and Bulgaria's and Turkey's European Union (EU) membership processes, the sources added.
Turkish PM Erdogan, who arrived in Bulgaria on Tuesday, met his Bulgarian counterpart Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and European Parliament (EP) President Pat Cox.
(BRC-ULG) 07.07.2004