The Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Feim Chaushev is expected to be dismissed next week over the scandal with his double identity. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency)
The Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Feim Chaushev is expected to be dismissed next week in the wake of the scandal in which it was revealed that he uses two different names.
The news was announced by the Bulgarian private Darik Radio, which also reported that PM Sergey Stanishev had a meeting with Chaushev late on Friday.
The Deputy Foreign Minister, however, has denied he had talked to Stanishev, and stated that his possible resignation was going to be his own choice.
His dismissal is expected to take place after the end of the official visits of the Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and of the President of the European Commission JosГ© Manuel Barroso that are scheduled for next week.
Last week it became publicly known that Chaushev uses the name Feim Yuseinov Chaushev as Deputy Foreign Minister, while at the same time participating at the management of several trading companies under the name Petar Yuriev Chaushev.
The latter name was given to him during the so-called "regeneration process" at the end of the 80s when the communist regime forcibly replaced the Islamic-sounding names of hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian Muslims and ethnic Turks with Bulgarian-sounding ones.