The Armenian genocide issue has also had repercussions in Bulgaria, though only on political level. Its highlights locally took place on April 24 last and this year, the international day to commemorate the mass killings and expulsion of Armenians from the then-Ottoman Empire. Heated parliamentary debate put the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the party led and supported mainly by Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent, at odds with ultra-nationalists Ataka and members of other opposition parties.

On both occasions, MRF MPs refused to respect the one-minute silence in honour of the massacre victims and walked out of the parliamentary chamber. When the MRF MPs returned, the right-wing MPs in turn ostentatiously walked out.

Opposition MPs, with Ataka at the forefront, accused the MRF of being the conduit of Turkey’s national policy in Bulgaria. The MRF retorted that Bulgarian Parliament cannot help but commemorate victims of wars of all times, like those of, say, Somalia and Cambodia.

Both Novoto Vreme and Ataka have successfully tabled draft resolutions to recognise the Armenian massacres as genocide. The resolutions, though, have as yet not been put to the House for a vote.