NEW ATTITUDE OF BULGARIA TO THE KURDS

AIM Skopje, 14 January, 1998

Increased interest for the problem of the Kurds has not missed Bulgaria. Since some time ago, a change in the official policy concerning this question has become evident - Bulgaria is joining the struggle against terrorrists from the Kurd Workers' Party (PKK). It is highly questionable what the relation to other Kurds in the country will be like and whether they might not end up lumped together with the terrorists.

Until recently, problems of the Kurds were just a minor issue in relations between Bulgaria and Turkey. Bulgarian politicians were divided between the traditionally favourable attitude towards the struggle of the Kurds for independence, which is the stand of former communists, nowadays Socialists, and new political interest of the ruling anti-communist Union of Democratic Forces (SDS) whose attitude is quite the opposite.

However, the question of the Kurds has started to acquire much greater significance for Turkey and its internal affairs, and since recently it diverted attention of the EU as well, after a great number of Kurd imigrants arrived in Italy. The problem could not miss Bulgaria either, whose communist authorities had tolerated activities of PKK. In the country there are about 2000 Kurds who studied in Bulgarian colleges, have their families and are employed here. About 60 per cent of them have come from Syria, and the rest are from Turkey and Iraq. The smallest part of them are from Iran. Two of their clubs are registered - the Kurd Cultural Centre and the Information Centre of Kurdistan. The Bulgarians are increasingly involved in illegal transportation of people to the countries of EU. Even in the latest wave of imigrants to Italy there was a "Bulgarian connection" - an emigrant Filipoglu was the organizer of transportation of the Kurds.

The new government of the SDS has announced a new attitude of the state to this problem which was confirmed on the occasion of the visit of Turkish prime minister Mesut Jilmaz to Sofia in November last year. That is when the two countries signed a contract on mutual aid in the struggle against terrorism. This automatically meant that Bulgaria had to immediately join in the struggle against activists of the PKK. Recently the president of the parliamentary commission for foreign policy and deputy of the SDS Asen Agov unambiguously proclaimed PKK a terrorist organization. "We should not be prejudiced with such qualifications. It would be too superficial and frivolous from the political point of view", stated the former head of the intelligence service, Brigo Asparuhov.

The first results in the struggle against terrorism came without delay. Based on information of Bulgarian special services Turkey revealed illegal printing works for counterfeit money in Istambul, in the operation of which some Bulgarian emigrants were involved. It came out in the open that the millionaire from Krdzalija Erdzan Radhid, alias Roko, who was already in Bulgaria the topic of inter-partisan haggling, was also a link in the chain of the scandal with counterfeit money.

In spring 1997, after a swift police action, Roko was arrested and this case became some kind of a symbol of the new approach of the SDS to the struggle against crime. The leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) Ahmed Dogan, stood up in defence of Roko, and later supreme prosecutor Ivan Tatarchev also got involved in the scandal. These two became the central target of the attacks of the current government, so that the "Roko case" got in the focus of the struggle between prime minister Ivan Kostov on the one hand, and leader of Bulgarian Turks Dogan and supreme prosecutor Tatarchev on the other. It was evident that if the government manages to prove that Roko was indeed part of organized crime it would acquire a serious advantage on the social and political level. By revealing the printing press of counterfeit money and the "Roko connection", the cabinet won a point in its favour.

Prime minister Kostev and minister of internal affairs Bonev were paid back by Turkey - Ankara sent minister Bonev a list of Turkish and Bulgarian enterprises which were involved in illegal business. Some of them were used as bases of Kurdish PKK. Ankara demanded from the Bulgarian minister of the interior to gather more information and to consider the question at a joint meeting with his Turkish colleagues.

In a special list, addresses were given where according to Turkish special services supporters of PKK could be found. On this list there were 15 apartments where supporters of the PKK lived. Among them, a gas station in the vicinity of Sofia was mentioned, as well as a garage and a restaurant. The Turkish authorities demanded from the Bulgarian government to do the necessary in order to prevent activities of supporters of PKK in Bulgaria.

"I handed over to the Turkish minister of internal affairs a list of names of Turkish enterprises and businessmen who are engaged in illegal activities in Bulgaria. There are no members of the PKK among them, though", declared minister Bonev. "There are no Kurdish enterprises in Bulgartia. There are only Turkish companies which are a screen for money laundry of the mafia", was the official statement of the Cultural Information Centre of Kurdistan in Sofia.

President of the Centre, Dimitar Avramov interpreted Jilmaz's visit to Bulgaria in his own way. He officially stated that the Turkish prime minuister had demanded that the Cultural Information Centre of Kurdistan be closed. Avramov complained that protectors of the Kurds in Bulgaria were not permitted to hold a press conference during the visit of the Turkish prime minister. The authorities forbade all press centres in Sofia to give space and time to the Kurdish Centre, claim former candidate for president and vice-president of Bulgaria, Velko Vlkanov and Rumen Vodenicharov, who are also protectors of the Kurds. "Pressure was exerted on us. Rumour goes that we are officers of secret services and a coordination link of the PKK. It is not true", stated Avramov. He spread information of the Front for National Liberation of Kurdistan that Ankara was preparing terrorist acts which were supposed to be laid at the door of the Kurds. One terrorist group has already tried to get into Bulgaria. Another was already transported to Austria. "The Kurds are an important strategic ally of Bulgaria and that is why they are trying to quarrel us with them", warned Vlkanov, who is at the moment a deputy of the socialists.

"In Bulgaria, the Kurds are mostly working in the sphere of culture. Sometimes pressure is exerted from without aimed at proving that partisan bases of the Kurds, terrorists and similar are located in the country. Nothing of the kind exists. The aim of the Kurds in Bulgaria is to advocate our just cause", claims Bahzad Ibrahim, representative in Bulgaria of Bulgarian Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria.

AIM Sofia

GEORGI FILIPOV