Turkey's ambassador to Bulgaria, Mehmet Gucuk, is absolutely bullish on Bulgaria's economic future and EU membership bid.

He started his job in Sofia only five months ago, but says he's been here long enough to bear witness to spell-bindingly rapid - and positive - change that's sure to benefit Bulgarians and Turks.

"During the last couple of years we have observed a leap" in economic activity between the two countries, he said.

In 2003, trade between Bulgaria amounted to $500 million, he said. Each country's commerce comprised about half of that amount, with $150 million of Bulgaria's share derived from electricity sold to Turkey.

In April 2003, Turkey stopped buying electricity from Bulgaria. Yet by 2005 trade between the two countries had ballooned to $2.5 billion. Bulgaria receives about $1.3 billion of that sum. Turkey receives $1.2 billion.

The 17th largest economy in world, Turkey has a population of about 75 million people, making it a bottomless market for Bulgaria.

"Bulgaria has a lot of potential and should have plenty of room to increase its exports to Turkey," he said. "In terms of Bulgarian (investment possibility), that means the sky is the limit."

Meanwhile, Bulgaria stands to gain from Turkish economic expansion without fear of being overwhelmed, the ambassador said. Turkey needs to find many markets to handle its growing economy. Bulgaria will always help in that regard, but it will never be viewed as sole target for Turkish investment.

"In Turkey there is (so much) potential, Bulgaria can't absorb it all," he said.

Gucuk points to Turgovishte-based Trakiya Glass, a factory owned by Turkey-based Sisecam, as a showcase example of Turkish investment. The $220 million factory employs 1100 workers who produce glassware that is almost entirely directed for exports, for example. But that's just the beginning.

"That investment has multiple effects," he said.

The factory has an enormous amount of spin-off investments. It purchases 200 000 tons of sand and 13 000 trucks to carry it all each year, for instance, he said.

Trakiya Glass was a Greenfield project, too. "It's not like an investment in the field of real estate," Gucuk said. "It's an investment from zero for the purpose of having a permanent location in the Bulgaria market, long-term."

Ankara is working to shore up the Bulgarian-Turkish border, too, the ambassador said. The border is seen as a major transport point for heroin, human trafficking and other contraband. Customs agents on both sides of the border are infamous for looking the other way if smugglers pass them a few euro.

In December, Turkish police swept through the Turkish side of the Kapitan Andreevo border station and rounded up 70 Turkish border guards on corruption charges, Gucuk said.

"Some very serious measures were taken vis-a-vis these allegations," he said.

As for small-time smugglers, or "suitcase traders," who buy items cheaply on one side of the border in order to sell them for a profit on the other, or who buy cheap duty-free cigarettes and gas to sell outside the border zone, they don't represent a major chink in border security, he said.

"These are generally low-income people who don't find any other job opportunities who opt for that kind of transaction," he said. "These kinds of trades take place within the boundaries of legal limits. We can say perhaps these people use the loopholes in legislation."

Border co-operation is an example of how Turkey is taking its candidacy for EU membership seriously, the ambassador said.

Turkey is the only EU candidate country (it's been an associate member since 1963) that had a customs union with Europe before becoming a full member, an arrangement that has been very successful for both Brussels and Turkey, he said.

Another dimension of that closeness and co-operation are the social ties between Europe and Turkey. Bulgarian Turks and other Turks living in the Balkans are only the tip of the iceberg of those ties.

"These people of Turkish descent living in the Balkan countries or Crimea in the Ukraine, in Iraq, Greece - this is simply the legacy of an empire that lasted for more than six centuries," he said. "We have to differentiate between national belonging and ethnic affinities."

Gucuk prefers to point to the Turks living in the heart of Europe who are active members of the community as proof that Turkey and Europe have close social ties.

"Suffice to mention the Turks living in Germany - 3.5 million — and 14 million in all of Europe," he said.

But Turkish emigrants now living in Europe, and especially historical issues concerning Turkey's Ottoman past, are the least important aspect of Turkey's EU bid, he said.

"If Turkey is going to be a member of the EU, this will only take place when Turkey fulfills the political and economic commitments to a full extent," he said.

The EU and Turkey's membership bid, ultimately, is about political values that go beyond any single national culture, he said.

"The Turkish republic was founded in 1923. Turkey is the only secular Muslim democracy in the world," he said. "From the very beginning of the republic, Turkey turned its face to the West."

Gucuk hoped that the political forces in Europe that oppose Turkish EU membership — many of which base their reservations on racist criteria — wouldn't succeed in swaying public opinion in current EU member states against Turkey's bid.

That kind of opposition would only increase resistance to the EU in Ankara, where some are as skeptical of the EU as some European politicians are skeptical of Turkish membership in the union.

"If that kind if discriminatory posture reaches intolerable levels, this will help the hands of those against Turkish membership in the EU in Turkey," he said.

Brussels might be shooting itself in the foot if it doesn't invite Turkey into the union. Forty million Turks are under the age of 25. That's a starkly different picture than demographically stagnating Europe, which needs new blood if it wants to compete in a world that's likely to be dominated by populous China and India in a generation or two.

Gucuk was also quick to highlight how Turkey played a key role in defending the West during the Cold War.

"Turkey has been in every Euro-Atlantic association from the start," he said. "Two-thirds of NATO boundaries with the Warsaw Pact were on Turkey's borders."

Now that Bulgaria and Turkey aren't military foes, Gucuk hoped Bulgaria would join the EU in 2007 and help guide Turkey into the union as soon as possible afterward.

"Turkey and Bulgaria are each others' respective gates to other worlds," he said.