The Pan-Turkish Organization was a group that claimed responsibility for a failed letter bomb attack on a Bulgarian travel office in the Netherlands in 1985.  Although the device was defused by Dutch police, it was reportedly professional in nature and could have caused extreme bodily harm. <P><br /><br />In a claim of responsibility, the previously unheard of Pan-Turkish Organization gave no motive for their attack and simply promised that more bombs would follow (none did).  Despite a lack of information surrounding the group, it is likely that the attack was in response to brutal assimilation policies instituted by the Zhirkov regime in Bulgaria against its substantial Turkish minority. <P><br /><br />Relationships between ethnic Bulgarians and Turks have long been strained due to the fact that Ottoman Turkey occupied Bulgaria for many years.  In the late 19th century, ethnic Turks actually outnumbered Bulgarians in Bulgaria.  With the onset of independence in 1878, thousands of Turks fled the country.  These massive migrations would continue throughout the 20th century, with hundreds of thousands of Turks either leaving or being expelled by the autocratic Bulgarian government.  Despite this, the Turkish population remained strong in Bulgaria. <P><br /><br />In 1984, Turkish birth-rates were exceeding those of the Bulgarian populace.  In response, the Bulgarian government began an assimilation program against the Turks.  The campaign forced all Turks to renounce Muslim customs and adopt Bulgarian names.  Teaching Turkish in schools, once common, was now forbidden.  The Bulgarian government explained that the Turks were not in fact a separate ethnic group, but were simply Bulgarians who had been forced to convert to Islam by the Ottomans.  In response to the campaign, thousands of ethnic Turks protested and hundreds of people were allegedly killed or sent off to prison.  It is likely that some of these protests involved low level domestic terrorism (small bombings, arson) although information is scarce on the topic due to strict controls on the media at that time. <P><br /><br />In any case, the name of the group and the target it chose suggests that the Pan-Turkish Organization was acting in response to the Bulgarian assimilation plan and in solidarity with the Turkish population in Bulgaria.  Although the explosive device was sophisticated, it is not thought that the group was highly organized or structured.  <br />