The Turkish president is not yet a sultan, but his envoys have started distributing ultimatums to foreign countries as if planning to restore the Ottoman Empire. One of the news headlines in Bulgaria during the outgoing week was related to the scandalous behavior of Turkish Ambassador to Bulgaria Suleyman Gokce. On Tuesday appearing for an interview at Nova television he turned his back on civilized language and “advised” Sofia to change its discourse about Turkey. In his words rhetoric against Turkey reminded him of the discourse during communism – with the main point being that Turkey is a threat to Bulgaria’s national security.

The icing on the cake was Gokce’s thesis that Turkey is in fact guarantor of this country’s national security and a generator of wellbeing and peace for all its neighbors. His arguments? They boiled down to refugees. He said that now Turkey was hosting 3.6 million refuges, while Bulgaria only had several thousand. Gokce pointed out that this was due to that Turkey was paying two billion dollars to keep them in Turkey. This implies that Turkey keeps them off the border but this could change. In fact, this is a threat that President Erdogan has repeatedly thrown in the face of Europe.

Hours after the outrageous televised appearance of the Turkish ambassador, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev talked to the press and gave the ambassador a free lesson in diplomacy: „Government in Bulgaria is based on good neighbor principles and non-interference in the domestic affairs of neighboring countries, but we shall not allow any influence on our internal affairs and this should be crystal clear. The Bulgarian head of state would never comment the internal political situation in another country the way the Turkish president commented on the state of Bulgarian democracy.”In retrospect, days ahead of the parliamentary elections in this country on 26 March, Recep Erdogan accused Bulgaria of exerting pressure prior to voting against the Turks living in the country.

The Co-Chairman of the United Patriots Valeri Simeonov who will most probably be one of the cabinet ministers in the new government, reacted sharply talking to Nova Television and demanded that Suleyman Gokce be declared persona non grata. „Effrontery has no limits; his behavior violates all kinds of political norms”, Simeonov said.

The high-level “diplomacy” demonstrated by Suleyman Gokceon television was renewed in the press on Thursday. In an interview for 24 Hours daily the ambassador repeated his main points, but this time there was an extra treat. He explained that the wire fence that Bulgaria was building on the border with Turkey in a bid to prevent the migrant flow was not to the liking of Turkey and was an expensive toy. Well, never mind, because according to Suleyman Gokcethe Bulgarian government has the right to decide how to spend taxpayer money. Exactly! That is why the Turkish authorities have decided to spend 600 million euro in taxpayer money to build Erdogan’s white palace.

Adding to the media picture the fact that AmbassadorGokcejointly with Lutfi Mestan toured Muslim towns and villages in Bulgaria to create structures of the ethnic party DOST and campaigned for the party during the Bulgarian parliamentary elections’ campaign in March and was even summoned for explanation by the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, we ought to ask the question what kind of diplomat this ambassador is and based on what he treats Bulgaria like a Turkish province.

With Suleyman Gokce’s actions Ankara has set a kind of a record. Even ambassadors of the Great Powers have never tried to interfere so brutally into Bulgaria’s domestic affairs.

English Daniela Konstantinova