Husseyin Muftuoglu, spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry called on Bulgaria to renounce practices aimed at restricting the political rights of minorities which runs counter to the European rules-based system.

The Anatolian news agency notes that Muftuoglu was commenting the restriction of the number of polling stations to no more than 35 in countries outside the EU introduced by Bulgaria. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry this step aims to stop Bulgarian citizens in Turkey from voting. The restriction was set down in the Electoral Code at the beginning of last summer, and at the time there was no reaction from Ankara whatsoever. The rebuke coming now can be described as an asymmetric response to the protest by the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry against the appeal by Turkey’s Minister of Labour Mehmet Muezzinoglu in support of one particular political party in Bulgaria which Sofia views as interference in its domestic affairs.