Turkish security forces have arrested two suspects in connection with the fatal shooting of a Bulgarian police officer at the border with Türkiye, regional Turkish authorities said on Tuesday.
Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said the officer was killed by gunfire from the direction of a group of migrants trying to cross into his country, an European Union member state, from Türkiye.
In a statement, the governor's office in Turkish border province Edirne said a shotgun and shells used in the shooting were found in the possession of the suspects, Reuters reported.
Demerdzhiev said shots were fired on Monday evening from Turkish territory at a border police officer and a serviceman patrolling part of the country's southeastern frontier near the village of Golyam Dervent.
The police officer, who was inspecting a cut in the fence along the border, died on the spot. The serviceman, who was not hurt, returned fire after hearing 10-15 shots and a group of suspected migrants retreated, Bulgarian officials said.
"This is a criminal act, an extreme aggression...This is the first attack with firearms by migrants," Dermendzhiev, who rushed to the site of the incident, told reporters.
"From now on, we will be uncompromising towards anyone who endangers the health and life of our officers," he said.
Dermendzhiev said Turkish authorities had pledged to cooperate and seek the perpetrators and that he would ask them to combat human trafficking rings more actively.
Bulgaria has deployed some 350 troops along its southern border with Türkiye and Greece to help border police combat a growing influx of migrants.
