ABSTRACT
On September 11, 1986, a "Declaration on Friendship, Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation" was signed by the Bulgarian leader, Todor Zhivkov, and the Greek Prime Minister, Andreas Papandreou, during the latter's two-day visit to Sofia. On the surface, the declaration appeared to consolidate the process of Greek-Bulgarian rapprochement that had begun even before the fall of the military junta in 1974 and had gathered pace since the first election victory of pasok in 1981. The declaration had been some time in the preparation and was discussed during the visit to Sofia in December 1985 by Karolas Papoulias, the Greek foreign minister. The Yugoslav and Turkish governments were swift to respond to the Greek-Bulgarian summit. On the eve of Papandreou's arrival in Sofia, tanjug reported that Stane Dolane, a member of the Yugoslav Presidium, had said that Greece had pledged that it would grant official recognition to Macedonian as a minority language.
