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(@ Generat Aoecmbly (Gigg) R Lter TURKMEN UNITED NATIONS Generat AoecmblY Dt str. (@ GENERAI, A/4O/904t 26 Noeember I98 5 ORIGINAL: ENGI.ISE Fortieth sesslon Agenda iten 39 CO!,I!,IEI,IORATION OF TAE FOR?I ETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNITED NATIONS Le-tte,r dqteq.lS.t{oyerpPer 1,995 from t.he permanent Representatiee of Turkey to the United Nations t{ith reference to the letter dated g Novenber lg85 fron the pernanent Representa!lee of Burqaria to the unlted Nations addressed to rour Excelrency (A/40/5691 and upon lnstrrrctlons from ny Governnent, you I have the honour to resuesr to have the enclosed text and its appendices concerntng ehe oppressive pol.ici.es of the Governnent of Bulgaria aqainst Che Turklsh ninority in that country clrculated as an officiar. docunent of the General Assenrbly under agenda item 39. (gigg) r lter TURKMEN Ambasaador Pernanent Repr esentat ive Relssued for technical reasons. 85-34508 1787i (Er English^/40/9o4 Page 2 ANI{EX His Excellency Mr. Turgut Ozal, Prine Minister of Turkey, ln his atatenent to the ceneral Assembly on 22 October 1985, conitenned the pollcies of oppression of ninoritiea in certain countries in vlolatl.on of thelr specific inCernational obligations. He stated: nsuch is the cas€ of the Turkiah rninority in Bulgaria ehere the rights of that minorlty are being persisgently tranPled upon. includtng freedom of rellglon and conacience, and lhe rigbt to Preaerve its cultural identityn. The leCter addressed to the Secr etary-cener at by the Permanent Repreeentative of Bulgaria on I November 1985, thich in egsence reProduces the press release by che Bulgarian Permanent Mission to the united Nations on 22 October 1985, is in fact an admission of guilt. Indeed' ttte main algunent used against point8 maale by the Prime Miniater of Turkey is that there ia no Muslin Turkigh minority in Bulgaria and that I l,/2 rnillion rurks lb this country are racially Bulgarians. To pretend that an ethnlc aroup ls of a different racial origin' despite its or.tn national, cultural and religious consciousness, can only be gualifled as pure racisn. In the light of the early history of Bu1garia, such an approach wouLd also raise the gueation of the ortginal raclal identity of the Bulgars thenselves. The letter of the Permanent Representative itself refers to the national consciousness of the Ituslin Turks ln Bulgaria. Indeed, ghe Turkish Musllm mlnority in Bulgaria speaks Turkish, ia proud of its culturaL heritage and atlached to the lslanic faith. No subterfuge or dslagoguery can alter this reality. If Bulgarians eanl !o prove the opposlte, they can very easily do so by openlng their country to the representatives of the sorld prese. The Bulgarian tetter also alleges that tbe Turki6h Governrnent is crying co provoke Islanic States against Bulgaria. There is no need for bhat. The Islanic countries have spontaneously condemned the oppressive Bulgarian policies and expressed concern and sympathy for the Turkish Muslin ninority' The letEer repeats severaL irrelevanC allegations. Bulgaria cannot obscure its orrn responslbility by a series of falsificatlons and accusations wlthoul foundation. r{hat is at issue is the tragedy suffered eoday by I l/2 mlllion nen, women and children to$ards nhorn BuLgaf,ia bas specific treaty obligations. Turkey is. for her part' fulfilling all her treaty obllgatlons lowards ninorities in Turkey and expects Bulgaria to do the same. The letter repeats the aLlegations of Arrnenian terrorists. The Turki€h position on this blatant distortion of history is nell kno$n, but, the lecter, by espousing the views of the terrorists. calls attention again !o the grotting concern about reports of the Eulgarian connection with international terrorl-sm. There ie an identifiable effort in the Bulgarian letter to find alibi8 in order to cover up its policies of oppression againse tshe Turkish ninority. For instance, rnuch enphasls is placed on an article of Mithad Pasha, but this enphasls is on the ryrong side. As the Bulgarian letter mentions' this arClcle was written shortly after Bulgarian lndependence. This eas a time qhen Bulgaria was engaged in another carnpaign of terror against. the Mustilfl population of the country. /... A/40/9O4 Eng lish Page 3 The article by Mithad pasha only docurnents that Bulgaria has through her history purgud policies of oppression and annihilation of one kind or another against ber minorities. rn recent tines, the "dlsappearancer of the Macedonian minority of nearly 200,000 according to the 1965 Burgarian census is a reveallng exanple. Since th€ letter of lhe pernanent Representative of BuLgaria contains a very distorted descriptlon of the history of Bulgaria, which has apparently been revised ln tbe course of tbe recent Bulgarian campaign, it night be sorehehile to recall sone facts. Burgaria cane under ottoman sovereignty in 1393. Turks settled in Bulgaria as of that date and bave llved lbere uni.nter ruptedly for nearly 500 years, Before the arrival' of the ottoman Turks, Burgaria had iived under the polltical domination of Byzantium which opened the tday to heav!, oppression fEon the Byzantlne Church. As Burgarian historians therRserves have stress€d, during the Byzantine doml.nation the Bulgarian population, deprived of all, fr eedons and of an independent church, faced Che dange! of losing its racial existence. In fact, Bulgarla practically disappeared from the scene of history during the 350 years of Byzantlne donination and oppression. The Bulgarian communi.ty was absorbed in tbe Byzantine church which brought it to the point of losing its native tongue as well. In sharp contrast to this state of affairs, there is another fact recognized by all historians. During the Ottonan period, Bulgarians enjoyed egual status with tbe Turks as part of a multinational and nultireligious Slate. The Bulgarian Church gained its personallty during thls period and the Bulgarian connunity enjoyed autonomy ln its affairs, The Bulgarian populalion was endowed Hlth the neans to recover its identitg. Bulgaria, which today so vehemenlly accuses the Ottoman Enpire, oues its very existence to the Ottomans and bheir policy of rellgious, cultural- and cornmunal tolerance and autonony with regard to the conmunities that forned the Ottoman aociety. The present Bulgarian cover nment. evidenuy prefers to have this facts conueniently forgotten. But one strlking point shoulal not escape even the BuLgarian Government! if the Ottomans had tleated the Bulgarians as the Bulgarians are treating at present the Turkish mlnority in their counEry, thefe would not have been a single Bulgarlan left today. Por anyone reading the Bulgarian claims, it is imposslble not to get lhe inpression that these are presented aa if Burgaria had acbieved its independence a few years ago, Bulgarta, after nore than 100 years, does not seem to have groen accustoned to independence and the respons ibi l ilies it €nbails. Bulgarian authoritles clain that lhe ottonans att.empted to Turkify and rslanize tbe Bulgarian population, but that they did not succeed due to lhe miraculous Gtrength of national conaciousness of the Bulgarian people. rf a poli.cy of assinilation had indeed been pursued against a communily that was part of the Ottornan Enpire for nearly 500 years, it {ould have been inpossible for the Bulgarian coftnunlty to resist such aaslnilation. During these five hundred years, a comrnun ity subjected to a policy of assirnilation for 30 !o 35 consecutive generatlons would have been totaLl,y transformed and neith€r Bulgarians, nor Bulgaria wourd have exlsted today. The nere fact that this is no! the case beLies Bulgarian clains of Turkification and Islaniz at ion. /.,. v40/eo4 Engli sh Page 4 Ttle Bulgari.an letter contrlees a very somber description of the soclo-€conomic and human rights sltuation In Turkey. If this were a fact the Turkiah uuslittt ninorlty rrould not bave desperately deslred to enlgrate to Turkey and the Bulgarlan covernment eould not have cornered itself lnto an absurd and ridlculou6 situation by denylng them the right to Leave the heaven Bulgaria is supposed to be accordlng to Bulgarian propaganda. The Bulgarian letter does not contain any referenc€ to the offer of Turkey Uo negotlate at a high level the problen of the Turklsh mlnorlty ln Bulgaria, ehich tb€ covernnent of Bulgaria contlnuously rejecta. In the context of the Bulgarizalion canpaign, Bulgarlan authoritiea clain that there are no Turks ln Bulgarla, but only Mualins. The notive behind that absurd assertion i.s eeident. The Bulgarian authorlties are tryi.ng, de6pite the cont.ractual situation, to discard Turkey fron being an lnterested party to this grave humanitarian problem. Unell. recently, horwever. Bulgarlan statesmen and Bulgari.an docunenta spoke of the Turklsh rnlnor lty i,n Bulgatia. Bilateral Tur kish-Bu lgar ian agreements explici.tly refer to the Turklsh ninority in Bulgaria. The recent Bulgarian claims that the Treaty of turk lsh-Bulgar ian Frlendship of 18 october 1925 nentlons not the Turks ln Bulgaria, but only the Mu€lin ninority are also i.rrelevani. Indeed, article 2, paragraph 1, of the Turk idh-Bulgar lan Convention on Establishnent, concluded in Ankara on lhe sane date, is as follows: nBotb contracting parties have agre€d not to obatruct in any ray optlonal emigrat.ion of Turka i,n Bulgarla and Bulgarlans in lurkey.' Therefore, contrary to Bulgarian clains, it rras established through this Convention concluded the sane day that the Muslin ninority ln Bulgaria conaists in fact of Turks. Moreover, Bulgaria undertook to agree to the enigratlon of theae people to Turkey if they so vished. It is evident that Bulgasla ls violating her conlractual obligatlons in bad falth and makes a nockery of the principle pacta sun! aervanda, a fundanentaL prlnciple of internatlonal lae and order. Bulgaria asserts that the fr eedor0 of conacience anat religion haue been guaranteed under the Bulgarian Constltutlon.
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