Bulgaria's Vice Prime Minister Emel Etem said that the media that say that the country is not ready for the EU are openly sabotaging the country.

Local media should be patriotic, Etem said, because many of the EU countries were influenced by the news disseminated by them.

The government is now working on a plan to tackle the problematic zones, Etem explained. It should be ready by the end of the following week, she said, adding that EU membership has been the nation's priority for the past 16 years.

Etem attended Saturday the fourteenth annual honourable meeting at the Demir Baba Teke region near Isperih marking the Regeneration Period.

In the 1980s Bulgaria's government launched an internationally condemned campaign - the Regeneration Period - to assimilate the Turkish minority by forcing its members to adopt Slavic names. Hundreds of Turks then immigrated to Turkey, most in the summer of 1989.

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