Bulgaria Nationalists VMRO Claim Territories Lost to Serbia in 1919

Domestic | November 29, 2009, Sunday // 12:50|  views

The Bulgarian nationalist party VMRO-BND has issued a declaration Sunday urging the government to reclaim territories lost to Serbia with the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly.

The call of the VMRO party is related to the occasion of the 90th year since the signing of the Neuilly Treaty, which established peace between Bulgaria and the Entente after World War I, and with which Bulgaria ceded territories to then Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania.

VMRO specifically insists that the Bulgarian government unconditionally demands back from Serbia the Bulgarian-populated territories it ceded to it in 1919. These are the so called “Western Outlands” – a territory of about 1 500 square km around the towns of Tsaribrod (today called Dimitrovgrad) and Bosilegrad, located next to Bulgaria’s western border, some 70 km to the west of the capital Sofia.

“We insist that the Bulgarian government state clearly to the Serbian authorities that the future of any sort of talks for Serbia’s EU accession depends on the fate of the Western Outlands. Until the moment of their restoration to Bulgaria, we insisted that Serbia immediately gives those lands autonomy similar to that of the region of Vojvodina,” the declaration of the nationalists calls.

“90 years after the Neuilly Treaty, which is a disgrace for Europe, Bulgaria and Serbia have the chance to resolve the future of the Western Outlands in a European way. This way, a historical injustice will be rectified. For this to happen, the Bulgarian state must be firm and demanding in support of the national interests and of our compatriots who remained on the other side of the barbed wire through no fault of their own,” VMRO states.

VMRO-BND claims to be a descendant of the VMORO (Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Organization) from the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century, which fought for the liberation of the regions of Thrace and Macedonia and their autonomy and/or accession to Bulgaria.

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Tags: VMRO, Neuilly Treaty, 1919, Serbia, Tsaribrod, Bosilegrad, territorial claims

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