THE BULGARIAN-TURKISH DIALOGUE DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1980S – THE DIFFICULT BEGINNING
Études balkaniques (Sofia) 2025, N 2, pp. 421 – 445
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62761/645.EB.LXI2.04
Evgeniya KALINOVA 
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria
Abstract: The article analyses the period from the spring of 1986 to the end of the year, when Bulgaria and Turkey, whose relations were in crisis due to the assimilation policy of the communist regime and the Second Cold War, began to seek opportunities for a dialogue to find a way out of the crisis. The focus is on the first attempt at such a dialogue – the meeting of the foreign ministers of Bulgaria and Turkey on 7 November 1986 during the Vienna meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The aim is to trace, on the basis of documents from the Central State Archive and the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the path of the two countries to this meeting; to clarify the tasks they set themselves; the ways they tried to solve them; and to analyse the significance and the results of the meeting.
Keywords: Bulgaria, Turkey, minorities, crisis, dialogue