Bulgaria's Borisov, Dogan Welcome Turkey's Erdogan

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pictured here attending the military's highest annual meeting with top military officials at the Army headquarters in Ankara, Turkey on 01 August 2010. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will pay a one-day visit to Bulgaria on October 4 at the invitation of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

Erdogan and Borisov will hold a bilateral meeting, and exchange views on bilateral relations, regional developments and international topics concerning the two countries.

According to information of the Turkish prime minister office, Erdogan will confer with Ahmet Dogan, the leader of the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and the head mufti Mustafa Alis Haci of Muslims in Bulgaria.

PM Erdogan will be accompanied by Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Y?ld?z, who will meet Bulgarian Minister of Economy and Energy Traicho Traikov.

The two ministers are expected to discuss the launching of construction of gas network interconnections between Bulgaria and Turkey that must set the start of building the Nabucco natural gas pipeline.

The Turkish prime minister had planned to visit Bulgaria in September but the referendum on constitutional amendments scheduled for September 12, 2010, forced him to postpone his plans.

Following the cancellation, he was expected to come to Bulgaria in December 2010 which is when the first sitting ever of the Bulgarian-Turkish intergovernmental council will take place.

The new format of bilateral ministerial meetings was agreed upon during Bulgarian PM Borisov's visit to Ankara in January 2010.

Top issues on the agenda of the meeting will be the construction of a new water reservoir on the Tundzha River as well as the compensations for the descendants of the Bulgarian refugees who fled European Turkey in the 1910-1920s escaping atrocities and repressions.

The previous visit of the Turkish prime minister was in April 2008.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!