MRF founder Dogan hits out at party leader over Turkey-Russia declaration ‘gaffe’
Ahmed Dogan, founder of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms – the party led and supported in the main by Bulgarians of Turkish ethnicity – has caused a stir of speculation about the future of the party after his criticism of leader Lyutvi Mestan was made public.
Posted on the party’s official website and extensively reported in the Bulgarian-language media, Dogan described a declaration in the National Assembly by Mestan after Turkey shot down a Russan bomber near the Syrian border as a “gaffe”.
The comments made by Dogan, some days earlier at a Christmas party, are the most prominent statements by him since he relinquished the party leadership in January 2013.
In the November 25 declaration in Parliament, Mestan said that it was an undeniable fact that in the past month, Russian military aircraft had violated Turkish airspace on multiple occasions. Given that Turkey is a Nato member country, such a violation equals a violation of the alliance’s air space and sovereignty.
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