Bulgaria's DPS party chairman Lyutvi Mestan has said he doesn’t plan to resign and no one has asked him to.

The chairman of the second-largest opposition party in Bulgaria’s current parliament said at a press briefing in Kardzhali on Thursday that he doesn’t renounce the declaration in support of Turkey amidst heightened tensions between Ankara and Moscow over the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkish Air Force in November, according to BGNES.

Kardzhali, a city in southern Bulgaria close to the border with Turkey, is a traditional power base for the predominantly ethnic Turk party.

The declaration, read by Mestan in Bulgaria’s parliament, has drawn fire from DPS founder and honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan.

On Thursday, Mestan said that the declaration was a normal statement for a party supporting Bulgaria’s membership of the EU and NATO. He also dismissed Dogan’s position that the declaration had been a mistake, adding that Dogan lacked serious arguments to attack it, according to BGNES.

Meanwhile, members of parliament from DPS have started arriving at Dogan’s villa in Boyana, on the outskirts of Sofia, where a meeting of the party is expected to decide whether Mestan will remain chairman, Nova TV reported on Thursday afternoon. 

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