Ahmed Dogan

Uncertainty looms about the number of unknown candidates that are to register with Bulgaria's Central Electoral Commission to run in the presidential elections on November 06.

Ahmed Dogan, the honorary chair of the Movements and Freedoms Party (DPS), could be nominated for President of Bulgaria, the party's current head Mustafa Karadayi has said.

Bulgaria's third-largest, predominantly ethnic Turk DPS party has elected Mustafa Karadayi as its chairman, the party's press office has said.

Karadayi had been pointed for months as the favourite to take over the party well before Sunday's national congress scheduled for the election of a new leader.

Bulgaria's new ethnic-Turkish party, Democrats for Responsibility, Freedom and Solidarity, DOST, denied having links to the Turkish government and confirmed its pro-NATO and pro-EU orientation on Tuesday.

A quarter of traditional supporters of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) party would vote for the new party of the former DPS leader, DOST, a Gallup International Bulgaria poll shows.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has received Lyutvi Mestan, who was expelled as head of Bulgaria's third-largest DPS party.

At the government residency in the Cankaya district in Ankara, the two have discussed Bulgarian politics, members of Mestan's future party DOST have said in a press statement.

The leadership of Bulgaria's predominantly ethnic Turk DPS party met on Wednesday with opposition CHP while on a visit to Turkey, the party itself has announced.

Republican People's Party (CHP) chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu received Rushen Riza and Cetin Kazak, two of the three interim heads of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) party, a message on the DPS website adds.

Bulgarian MPs dissolved on Wednesday the controversial ad hoc committee of inquiry on all facts and circumstances related to the alleged interference of Russia and Turkey in Bulgaria's internal affairs.

Bulgarian MP, businessman and media mogul Delyan Peevski - who was recently called "the iceberg of corruption in Bulgaria" by Germany's Der Spiegel - is giving up on business projects in Bulgaria, he announced on Monday.

Bulgartabac will halt its sales to the Middle East from April 1 due to alleged "negative media campaign" and in view of "the sensitive situation in that region", the tobacco holding group said on Wednesday.