When Bulgaria and Turkey signed an additional protocol to the emigration agreement in Ankara on November 14, 1977, the issue of divided families had already been unresolved for more than a decade. The document sharply increased the number of people Turkey was required to accept – from 300 to up to 1,300 people per week.
The new quota remained in effect until the end of November 1978. Under the protocol, around 62,000 more people emigrated to Turkey. This brought to an end the main stage of the “reunification of families” agreed between the two countries, which had begun with the agreement signed on March 22, 1968.
The 1968 agreement determined who could leave
The principal document entered into force on August 19, 1969. It allowed Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin to emigrate if their close relatives had left Bulgaria and settled in Turkey by 1952.
The agreement covered spouses, parents, grandparents, as well as certain categories of brothers, sisters and children. Emigration was to take place each year between April 1 and November 30, with the initial limit set at 300 people per week.
“This Agreement settles the issue of the emigration to Turkey of Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin who wish to emigrate,” reads the document’s first article.
From documents and visas to departure
Those wishing to leave had to submit their documents to the Bulgarian authorities within six months of the agreement’s entry into force. Passports were to be issued within 45 days, while Turkish diplomatic missions were also to issue entry visas within 45 days.
Those emigrating were entitled to take with them documents concerning their civil and property status, education, profession and employment history. They were also permitted to export personal and household belongings duty-free, as well as tools, implements and machinery necessary for their craft or agricultural activities.
In practice, the limited weekly intake and delays in issuing entry visas left thousands of people waiting. On the eve of the protocol, the Bulgarian side insisted that the procedure be expedited, as a significant number of applicants already had the necessary documents but were unable to leave.
Nearly 130,000 people settle in Turkey
The increase in the quota in 1977 turned the final year of the agreement’s implementation into the most intensive stage of the emigration. Between 1969 and 1978, nearly 130,000 people settled in Turkey.
This flow should not be confused with the subsequent mass emigration in 1989. The 1977 protocol was part of an agreed arrangement formally aimed at reuniting divided families, while the events of 1989 were linked to the communist authorities’ policy of forced assimilation and the forced departure from the country of hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian citizens.
For those who left under the agreement, the protocol meant an opportunity, after years of waiting, to reunite with their relatives in Turkey. For Bulgaria and Turkey, it marked the end of a prolonged and difficult episode in bilateral relations during the socialist period.
Sources: bta.bg