The World - News from May 31, 1989

Turkey said it would be willing to negotiate an immigration agreement with Bulgaria to allow the repatriation of ethnic Turks. “Our borders are always open,” Prime Minister Turgut Ozal said, responding to a call from Bulgarian President Todor Zhivkov for Turkey to permit all “Bulgarian Muslims” to immigrate, according to the Anatolia News Agency. The issue dominated the first day of a 35-nation Helsinki human rights conference that opened in Paris. Bulgaria took the offensive at the conference by blaming Turkey for recent violence involving Bulgaria’s ethnic Turks, who have resisted an assimilation campaign in Bulgaria.