​TURKISH PRESIDENT CANCELS VISIT TO MOLDOVA

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cancelled his visit to Moldova that had been scheduled for May 5-6, Moldovan President Igor Dodon announced in the live program “Friday with Anatol Golea” on the RTR Moldova channel – the Moldovan subsidiary of Russia’s second-largest television and radio corporation.

“I talked with the Turkish Ambassador here. Most probably, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not come here on May 5-6 due to the situation developing in Turkey and wider in the Middle East. But, most probably, we will meet on May 22 on the sidelines of the Summit of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) heads of state to be held in Istanbul. There, we will negotiate a new visit time for Mr. Erdogan to come here”, said Igor Dodon.

The Turkish leader was planning to visit a world congress of the Gagauz people being prepared in Comrat, the administrative center of the southern Moldovan autonomous region of Gagauzia.

“May be, Gagauzia Bashkan [governor] Irina Vlah will put off the congress date until a later time. We haven’t discuss this question yet”, said the Moldovan President.

The date of the 4th World Congress of Gagauzes has already been postponed several times. At the first congress held in 2006, it was decided to be holding such fora every three years. Accordingly, the second congress was held in 2009 and the 3rd – in 2012. Three years later, Irina Vlah put off the congress until 2016 and then until 2017. The congress timeframe, May 5-6, was announced yet at the beginning of the current year, when it became known that Recep Tayyip Erdogan would attend the event.

Many people in Gagauzia believe that the 4th congress must take place when it was initially decided, i.e. simultaneously with the Hederlez, the main holiday of the Gagauz people.

Infotag’s dossier: The Gagauz people (Gok Oguz) are a Turkic group living mostly in southern Moldova (Gagauzia), southwestern Ukraine (Budjak), south-eastern Romania (Dobrogea), northeastern Bulgaria, as well as Greece, Brazil, America and Canada. Unlike most other Turkic speaking people, the Gagauz are predominantly Orthodox Christians. There is a related ethnic group also called Gagavuz living in the European part of northwestern Turkey.

The total number of the Gagauz people is estimated to be some 250 thousand, of whom 160 thousand live in Moldova. Today Gagauz people outside Moldova live mainly in the Ukrainian regions of Odessa and Zaporizhia, as well as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Romania, Brazil, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Turkey and the Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria.

There are also nearly 20,000 descendants of Gagauzes living in Bulgaria, as well as upwards of 2,000 living in the United States of America, Brazil and Canada.

The Gagauz language belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, which also includes the Azerbaijani, Turkish, and Turkmen languages.