Cities Across Bulgaria-Turkey Border at Odds over Park Name

The Bulgarian city of Haskovo and its Turkish sister city of Edirne are freezing ties over Haskovo's grant the name Armentsi ("Armenians") to a park located on its territory.

The move, triggered by the Turkish side, was announced in official letter by Edirne Mayor Recep Gürkan, quoted by a Haskovo-based local news service Haskovo.net.

Haskovo and Edirne are lying on the respective sides of the Bulgarian-Turkish border, each located dozens of kilometers from the frontier.

"My affliction is not related to the name, but to the grounds on which it was chosen," Gürkan is quoted as writing in the letter dated April 21.

In the end of March, Haskovo's municipal council voted to rename a park located in the city after the "Armenians". The mayor of Edirne is now arguing that the occasion centenary of what a number of countries claim was "genocide" committed against Armenians on behalf of the Ottoman Empire.

In Gürkan's words, the choice of name is a result of a "unilateral, selective and divisive view of a period that is tragic for the entire population of the Ottoman Empire."

Haskovo's move is "met with a lot of disappointment by the entire population of Edirne," the letter reportedly reads further on.

As a result, Edirne is freezing the agreement under which it became a sister city to Haskovo and is also suspending economic, cultural, social and trade relations with the city.

Haskovo Mayor Georgi Ivanov said he neither intends to comment on the remarks of his colleague nor to respond.

Turkey disputes numbers of Armenian victims put forward by Armenians themselves and some historians, who claim up to 1.5 million people might have been killed.

The issue was recently raised by Pope...