Turkey would introduce a transit fee for Bulgarian trucks entering the territory, head of the Turkish Directorate of Roads, Talyat Aydin, announced on August 5 2008.

The new taxes would be levied as of September 1 2008.

One month earlier, Turkish transport minister Binali Yaldaram had criticised Bulgaria for the introduction of transit fees for Turkish trucks passing through Bulgarian territory.

Under a previous agreement, no taxes were levied on either side, but Bulgaria had unilaterally dissolved the agreement and introduced taxes of 83 euro a truck, Yaldaram said.

According to the Turkish transport ministry, 250 000 trucks transported goods between Europe and Turkey.

Turkish authorities had been forced to introduce the new taxes as a counter-measure to the introduction of taxation by the Bulgarians, Bulgarian news agency BTA quoted Aydin as saying.

Bulgarian daily Dnevnik quoted a source who had requested to remain anonymous as saying that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a telephone conversation with his Bulgarian counterpart Sergei Stanishev. The source did not say when the conversation had taken place or what the outcome was.

Aydin did not announce the amount of the taxation.

Turkish truck drivers meanwhile had started to avoid driving through Bulgaria, BTA said. Goods were being reloaded onto other trucks at the border to avoid having to pay the taxes.