SOFIA - Bulgaria is to step up efforts to claim more than $20 billion compensation from Turkey for a refugee case dating back to 1913, an issue it says could hamper Turkish ambitions to join the European Union.
Government minister Bozhidar Dimitrov said on Tuesday Bulgaria's centre-right government, in office since July, would speed up the collection of documents so that it could submit its claim against Turkey by the end of the year.
Bulgaria is seeking compensation for the property of more than 250,000 Bulgarians forced out of their homes in eastern Thrace, now in Turkey, during the Balkan wars in 1913.
"Getting the compensation issue solved is one of the many conditions for Turkey to join the EU," Dimitrov told Reuters. "It is already in the EU's progress report on Turkey".
"Turkey has acknowledged the issue," said Dimitrov, who oversees the agency for Bulgarians abroad and the state archives. "It has not said it would not pay, but it wants to know exactly how much."
Turkey has expressed frustration over slow progress in its talks to join the 27-member EU, with one of the main problems a dispute with EU-member Cyprus.
as i said before the turks bring nothing btu trouble wherever they go they treat any non turk like scum and then excpect nothing but royal treatment anywhere they are... and they wonder why they get NOTHING.. cry cry we are the inoccent ones what BS
