The new cabinet, announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after his re-election on May 28, held its first meeting today. After the meeting, President Erdoğan made a statement and said, “We will not make Turkey experience new embarrassments like the Boraltan Bridge disaster. We will resolve this issue peacefully in a way that suits our values of belief. After Erdogan's words, questions such as what is the Boraltan Bridge Disaster and when it happened became the agenda on social media.
WHAT IS THE BORALTAN BRIDGE DISASTER?
The Boraltan Bridge Disaster is the massacre that took place after the return of 195 Soviet soldiers of Azerbaijani origin, who took refuge in Turkey, to the Soviet Union in 1945, within the framework of the principle of reciprocity.
Turkey requested from the Soviet Union an officer and two of his soldiers who had taken refuge in the Soviet territory on the basis of reciprocity. When the Soviets declared that no traces of the soldiers could be found and did not return them, Turkey stopped the return of some of the soldiers who were on their way. Turkey also accepted the principle of granting Turkish citizenship to asylum seekers of Turkish origin.
Soviet soldiers of Azerbaijani origin in the border post had taken refuge in Turkey by crossing the Boraltan Bridge on the Aras River, but were returned upon the request of the Soviet Union, by the order of the government, within the scope of reciprocity.
The issue of the Boraltan Bridge Massacre was brought up for the first time in 1951 by the Democrat Party Tekirdağ deputy Şevket Mocan and caused various discussions.