Territories in Bulgaria (and other countries) are Turkey’s “living history in Europe” – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Turkey is not in the EU, but is both a member candidate and a democracy holding regular elections. In December 2013, months ahead of a crucial vote, the country’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said while campaigning in North-Western Turkey, close to borders with Bulgaria and Greece:
“Thrace is Thessaloniki but 
at the same time it is Komotini and Xanthi. It is also Kardzhali [in Bulgaria] and the Vardar River. Going further back, it is Skopje, Pristina and Sarajevo… Thrace is our living history in Europe… our representative in this geographic region.”
What Bulgaria did was to advise Turkish politicians to handle carefully interpretations connected with the Balkan past as such statements did not encourage “good neighborly relations”.
Erdogan’s remarks in December were however nothing compared to 2012’s blunder, when Bulgaria, along with Armenia, was on the verge of disappearing from Turkish schoolbooks – and therefore also from Turkish pupils’ heads. In the multimedia, apart from regions in Greece, Iraq, Cyprus and Georgia, the entire Bulgarian and Armenian territories were missing, as they were part of Turkey.
The Ministry of Education in Ankara officially apologized. We should only hope Turkey will react in the same positive manner if Bulgaria prints a map involving lands near the Straits or Greece does the same with the territories of Byzantine Empire… by mistake.
Source: novinite.com