DOST party will work toward strengthening Bulgaria’s relations with neighbouring Turkey, its leader Lyutvi Mestan has said.

"The Republic of Turkey can be of great help to us,” Mestan told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency on Sunday in his first interview for foreign media after last week’s founding of DOST party.

Mestan gave as an example of such help investment by Turkish entrepreneurs in Bulgarian regions with predominantly ethnic Turk population.

Mestan added that Bulgaria needs a strategy to develop its relations with Turkey putting aside what he called “historical complexes”. The leader of DOST referred to memories of nearly five centuries of domination of Bulgaria by the Ottoman Empire that was ended by the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. 

Politicians, analysts and media outlets in Bulgaria have accused Mestan of launching DOST as a pro-Turkish and even pro-Islamic party with ties to the government in Ankara. Mestan has denied the allegations, saying they were part of a smear campaign against him.

Turkey is not a threat to Bulgarian national security, Mestan reiterated in his interview with the Turkish news agency

The party, founded on April 10 in Sofia, is needed in a country in which there is one million Turks and Muslims out of population of seven million, Mestan adedd.

Among the guests at the founding conference were the Turkish ambassador to Bulgaria Suleyman Gokce and the deputy chairperson of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Fatma Betul Kaya.

A Gallup International Bulgaria poll showed earlier this month that a quarter of traditional supporters of Bulgaria's predominantly ethnic Turk Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) party, of which Mestan had been chairman, would vote for DOST if elections were held now.

Lyutvi Mestan announced the launch of DOST less than two months after he was expelled from DPS following criticism from DPS honorary chair Ahmed Dogan who accused him of siding with Turkey in Ankara’s spat with Moscow over the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkish Air Force in November 2015. DPS have downplayed Mestan’s chances of denting their voter base.

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