Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov expects his visit to Ukraine and the meeting with the Bulgarian community there to be confirmed as soon as possible.

“The defense of the rights and interests of Bulgarian citizens abroad is one of the major priorities that the Diplomatic Service works actively on,” said Bulgaria’s Top Diplomat, while reporting his initial 100 days as head of the Foreign Ministry. “The case with the 6 Bulgarian citizens – the team and the employees with their helicopter and its emergency landing in the southern part of Sudan was successfully ended. Those had been nabbed by the People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North). The chopper had been taking part in an operation of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Our compatriots were taken out of the country thanks to the efforts of the foreign ministry. We will continue to be active in the defense of the interests, rights and the life of Bulgarians abroad.”

The dropping of visas for people from this country, traveling to the USA and Canada remains a priority of the government. Hope was expressed that the EC will defend our interest. There is no data on Bulgarians so far, fighting for the Islamic State, Minister Mitov stated, but underlined that the work on the special legislation, incriminating such participation was ongoing, along with the one for restriction of the movement of the so-called warriors from abroad.

“We view the development of the Euro-Atlantic partnership as a guarantee of peace and global security and as an essential element of the integral concept of this country’s foreign and political activity,” Minister Mitov went on to say. “Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is a main guarantee of our national security. NATO means security, NATO means stability. Only then the country will be safe, regarding the threats that have been recently increasing in number. There are factors, trying to push us away from this choice by saying there are other options. No, there are no other options. The Islamic State is not an alternative to the EU and NATO. We don’t know what the values of the Eurasian Union are. There is no country within the EU and NATO, not willing to cooperate with Russia. We can share with it common values, common rules, but that will has been recently cut off unilaterally,” Mr. Mitov said.

As far as bilateral relations with Russia were concerned, the Foreign Minister said the following:

“Bulgaria will work for the maintenance of political, economic and cultural relations with the Russian federation at full compliance with the common EU stance and the restrictions imposed. The Bulgarian-Russian relations should be preserved and developed. The situation is complicated and if the truce in Ukraine is respected, we hope that we will see détente. Being an EU member-state, Bulgaria defends certain standards, as far as international relations are concerned. We can’t afford to close our eyes for the illegal annexation of a neighboring country’s territory and the deliberate destabilization of Ukraine.”

The restoration of German state guarantees for investments in Bulgaria was marked by Minister Mitov as one of the major successes over his first 100 days on the position. That was achieved during his recent visit to Germany.

“These guarantees were suspended 10 years ago,” he explained. “Their restoration means a restoration of trust towards the business climate in Bulgaria. That means that investments are possible here. The restoration of German trust will inevitably affect the business intentions of other EU companies,” Minister Daniel Mitov said. Besides that Sofia does support the European integration of the countries from the Western Balkans at clear guarantees for the protection of the rights and legal interests of the Bulgarian communities there,” the minister went on to say.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev