Sofia- Bulgarian government has urged the Turkish government to apply the agreement with the European Union to readmit migrants before it can get visa-free travel to the bloc.
Foreign Minister, Daniel Mitov, said on Wednesday in Sofia that the move become imperative as part of a deal to stem the flow of migrants and refugees.
He said that one million people fleeing conflicts in the Middle East arrived in Europe last year, with many arriving via Turkey, and that several EU states, including Bulgaria, feared a fresh influx if the deal broke down.
“The EU-Turkey agreement on migration needs to stand and be implemented.
“What we want to emphasise is that the readmission agreement needs to be implemented before visa liberalisation,’’ he said.
The EU’s relations with Turkey have become especially strained after EU governments criticised the scale of President Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on those he accused of organising or backing the failed coup on July 15.
The minister stressed the need to continue the dialogue and find the way to downsize and decrease the temperature of the rhetoric that had emerged.
“We need to talk to each other and not at each other,’’ he said.
Mitov said that Bulgaria detained no fewer than 14,000 migrants in the first six months of 2016, compared with 21,000 in the same period, last year.
He added that his country would not back a lifting of EU sanctions on Russia, which he said had disregarded international law in the Ukraine crisis.
EU diplomats had said Russia’s tactics of methodically lobbying southern and eastern EU member-states was starting to erode the bloc’s unity on sanctions imposed on Russia, making it potentially harder to renew them.
“Russia has blatantly and ruthlessly violated international order and law.
“That can’t be left without consequences and the only peaceful instrument is sanction,’’ he said.
Mitov insisted that until the Minsk agreements were fully implemented, there won’t be any condition to ease sanctions.
He said that it would be good for Bulgaria if the economic relationship improved with Russia, stressing that there were bigger issues on the table.
He added that unfortunately, the trust had been lost, and stressed the need to rebuild it without propaganda or distortion of the truth.
A loyal ally of Moscow in communist times, Bulgaria now a member of NATO, remained almost entirely dependent on Russian energy supplies and many Bulgarians still feel a deep affinity with their giant neighbour.