§ Mr. Nicholas WintertonTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has concerning the extent of the enforced exodus of ethnic Turks from Bulgaria.
§ Mr. WaldegraveWe understand that over 130,000 members of Bulgaria's Turkish minority have fled to Turkey since mid-May. It seems that the first wave, perhaps numbering several thousand, were deported but that the vast majority of later arrivals left Bulgaria voluntarily, albeit as a result of long-term harassment.
§ Mr. Nicholas WintertonTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations he has made to the Bulgarian authorities concerning human rights abuses perpetrated against ethnic Turks.
§ Mr. WaldegraveMy right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs protested to the Bulgarian ambassador on 1 June about his Government's policy towards the Turkish minority. We have also taken the matter up in Sofia, and our delegation to the Paris conference on the "human dimension" of the CSCE raised it on numerous occasions.
§ Mr. Nicholas WintertonTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations he has received concerning human rights abuses perpetrated against ethnic Turks by the Bulgarian authorities.
§ Mr. WaldegraveWe receive frequent representations about human rights violations affecting Bulgaria's Turkish minority. We have long had a policy of taking all appropriate opportunities of expressing our concern to the Bulgarian authorities, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora.