The leader of Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish party has been ousted from his post and expelled from the party, apparently for declaring support for Turkey in its row with Moscow over the downing of a Russian warplane.

Lutvi Mestan, who headed the opposition Movement for Rights and Freedoms party (MRF), which represents ethnic Turks, voiced support for Turkey’s action last month in a declaration to the Bulgarian parliament in which he said Russian military aircraft had repeatedly violated Turkish airspace.

Turkey said it shot down the plane in defense of its airspace. Moscow denied its plane had passed over Turkish territory.

A spokeswoman for the MRF said on Thursday that Mestan had been dismissed from his post and expelled from the party by a unanimous decision by its leadership taken at a meeting in the villa of party founder Ahmed Doğan.

“All the decisions regarding Mestan were unanimous,” the spokeswoman, Velislava Krasteva, told reporters.

Doğan, a respectable elder statesman of Bulgarian politics, said during the meeting that “this would be the fate of everyone who stands up against Bulgaria’s national interests,” the spokeswoman said.