Bulgaria: A bell for Armenia installed at Bells Monument in Sofia

September 24, 2016 By administrator

bell The Armenian Embassy in Bulgaria organized the installation of the bell representing Armenia at the Bells Monument in Sofia.

Press and information department of the Armenian Foreign Ministry informs that the event was attended by representatives of Bulgarian state institutions, NGOs and members of the community.

In his speech, Armenian Ambassador in Bulgaria, Armen Sargsyan briefly presented the challenges and achievements Armenia faced during 25 years of independence.

The Bells Monument built in 1979, is dedicated to the establishment and maintenance of world peace. There are over hundred bells representing different countries and international organization.

NATO annihilates Bulgarian army

August 4, 2016 By administrator

AP Photo A military reform in Bulgaria threatens the country with total loss of sovereignty. Discontent grows among the military. –

Decision of the authorities to engage the Polish pilots into the Air Force instead of county’s own was the last drop. After such decision, Commander of the Bulgarian Air Force Major General Rumen Radev resigned, as he believes such step is a real occupation.

However, in Brussels they prefer to call rejection of countries’ own armies as ‘allied aid’.

‘For me, a General of the Bulgarian army and Commander of the military aviation, this idea is even more humiliating than the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine (according to which, Bulgaria being German’s ally during WWI, lost about 10% of its territory, had to pay reparation and possessed reduced army),’ General Radev claimed. Now he decided to go into politics. According to unofficial data, he is appointed as a presidential candidate by the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

It is noted, that agreement between Bulgaria and Poland should come into force in the nearest months. Then the Polish pilots will carry out air policing of Bulgaria.

Before that Bulgaria used to reject an advantageous South Stream project being pressurized by Brussels.

Pravda.Ru

source: http://www.pravdareport.com/news/world/europe/02-08-2016/135191-bulgaria-0/#sthash.rU4YdHtW.dpuf

Greek PM and Bulgarian Counterpart Believe Greece and Bulgaria Can Be Axis of Stability

August 1, 2016 By administrator

By Ioanna Zikakou

“The Greek-Bulgarian High-Level Cooperation Council held on here on Monday will allow Greece and Bulgaria, two highly important countries of the Balkan peninsula, to make a significant new start toward establishing very close and constructive relations,” Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Monday, in joint statements with his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov after the Council ended.

Tsipras and Borisov pointed to the role of the two countries as pillars of stability within the surrounding region, at a time of generalized destabilization in their neighborhood, and noted their agreement for deeper cooperation within the EU and NATO in order to strengthen this role and to ensure security, stability, peace and growth in the region.

“Looking at recent developments in our neighborhood, one sees that the need for cooperation is more urgent than ever,” the Greek prime minister commented. He noted that there were major challenges to face as three parallel crises unfolded — the economic, refugee and security in Europe crises — and noted that Greece and Bulgaria fortunately remained outside the last of these as pillars of security and stability.

“Our cooperation will help so that we stay out of this crisis,” he added. Developments in Turkey and the need to progress faster toward a “better, social and democratic Europe” demanded the closest possible cooperation between the two countries, he said.

The Greek and Bulgarian people had the wisdom to overcome any past differences and forge a relationship that was very constructive and mutually beneficial for both sides and for the region, Tsipras noted. Greece and Bulgaria could be a model for a constructive cooperative relationship to promote peace and stability in the region, between two countries in the EU and NATO, he added.

“We can do a lot together within the EU and NATO with a flexible policy benefiting both states,” Borisov said, noting that relations between the two countries and their governments were marked by “personal relations and understanding” and that both sides had supported the other in times of crisis. Even though the two governments were from different political “families,” he added, they agreed on issues of critical importance.

Tsipras gave his Bulgarian counterpart an open invitation to visit Athens, Thessaloniki and Alexandroupolis to examine the progress of their initiatives and said there would be “open communication” between them.

Following the Council meeting, the government delegations from the two sides signed a series of bilateral agreements, including a Joint Declaration of the 3rd Greek-Bulgarian High-Level Cooperation Council meeting, a Joint Declaration on energy cooperation, a Executive Program for Educational and Cultural Cooperation in 2016-2018, and a Joint Action Program for Tourism in 2016-2018.

(Source: ANA-MPA)

Bulgaria Takes to Court Three Syrians on Charges of Terrorism

July 27, 2016 By administrator

Rumyana Arnaudova, spokesperson of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bulgaria.

Bulgarian prosecutors have charged three Syrian citizens with attempts to illegally cross the border into Turkey and travel onward to Syria to join as fighters the Islamic State and Muslim Brotherhood organizations, Sofia-based bTV broadcaster reported on Wednesday.

The thee men, aged 20, 22 and 25 years, had been granted refugee status in Germany. In January 2016 they decided to travel back to their home country to join Islamist militants, bTV said, citing a spokeswoman for the Bulgarian prosecution.

The Syrians, whose name bTV gave as Almohammad Abdulhamid, Al Abdallah Fadi and Al Fandi Yasim, entered Bulgaria from Greece on 7 February 2016 with the intention to enter Turkey and then reach Syria. They spent two days in the cities of Plovdiv and Sofia before travelling to the Border with Turkey.

Prosecutors found evidence of the plans of the three Syrians to become Islamist fighters in Syria on their mobile phones, both text and photos, according to the prosecution spokesperson.

The Syrians were detained by Bulgarian police while attempting to illegally cross the border into Turkey near the town of Svilengrad on 9 February.

A Bulgarian court will consider the charges against the three Syrian nationals on 2 August, bTV said. The Syrians face sentences of up to 10 years in jail, if convicted.

– See more at: http://www.novinite.com/articles/175653/Bulgaria+Takes+to+Court+Three+Syrians+on+Charges+of+Terrorism#sthash.pmasNunn.dpuf

Turkey blackmails Bulgarian municipalities over the Armenian genocide

May 24, 2016 By administrator

Bulgarian municipalities By Georgi Gotev | EurActiv.com

Three Bulgarian municipalities will not receive EU funding under the cross-border cooperation programs between Bulgaria and Turkey. The reason is that Turkey bans partnerships with municipalities who recognise the Armenian genocide.

The Bulgarian municipalities of Burgas, Haskovo and Svilengrad stand no chance to receive EU money, because of obstructions by Turkey, a non-EU member state, the Bulgarian public TV channel bTV announced yesterday (14 March).

The ban comes from the Turkish foreign ministry, which prohibits working with municipalities who recognise the Armenian genocide of 1915, when hundreds of thousands of Christian Armenians died during forced removals by the Ottoman army from what is now Eastern Turkey.

As Bulgarian municipalities are unable to find a Turkish partner to implement joint projects, they are bound to lose several millions of euros. The most important projects concern the environment, for the prevention and mitigation of natural disasters.

For Bulgaria, the issue constitutes both a diplomatic and economic scandal. In the region of Haskovo, every winter, rivers destroy bridges and dams, and flood villages. Local government lacks the resources to do preventative work. That’s why it was counting on the EU-funded regional partnership with the Turkish municipality of Edirne to do the required work. But now the project is dead, because Turkey reneged on cooperating.

The Mayor of Edirne, Recep Gürkan, is quoted as saying that the decision of the Turkish foreign ministry is final:

“With Haskovo we worked very well, but we already have a ban from our Foreign Ministry. The reason is a decision of the Municipal Council of Haskovo from last year, who used the motif of the Armenian genocide to name a park in the city,” Gürkan said.

Declarations condemning the Armenian genocide, adopted by the municipal councils of Bourgas and Svilengrad, have put these municipalities on Turkey’s black list. The Bulgarian Environment Ministry was informed of the case.

Speaking to bTV, Gürkan advised the Bulgarian municipalities to vote again. If the municipal council of Haskovo rescind using the Armenian genocide as a motif for naming a park, cooperation can start again, he said. And he added that the Bulgarian municipality of Yambol had done precisely that.

“Nobody can interfere (with) how we will name a street or a park,” retorted the mayor of Haskovo Dobri Belivanov.

Before prohibiting Edirne to work with these communities on projects, Turkey formally ended diplomatic relations with their mayors. With Haskovo, for example, the twinning was frozen.

Brussels can’t do anything

Apparently the EU can only stop the financing, because trans-border projects require a partner in the neighbouring country. Therefore the risk that the Bulgarian municipalities would lose EU funding because of the political games played by Ankara is real, bTV reports.

Turkish-Bulgarian relations have deteriorated recently. Bulgaria has declared a Turkish diplomat working at the Consulate General in Burgas a persona non-grata. A government source said the Turkish diplomat carried out activities which breach the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Bulgaria expels Turkish diplomat for conducting Islamist activity

Bulgaria has declared a Turkish diplomat working at the Consulate General in Burgas persona non-grata, the Bulgarian press reported yesterday (21 February).

Russian tourists Flocking Bulgaria, Greece boycotting terrorist state of Turkey

March 20, 2016 By administrator

n_96676_1 Both Greece and Bulgaria, two of Turkey’s neighbors, have stepped forward to lure Russian tourists, who have abstained from their most popular destination as part of Moscow sanctions on Ankara due to the downing of Russian military plane last November.

Greece has started granting three-year visas for Russian tourists with a single-day procedure, as Bulgaria has lowered its visa fees, according to information gathered by daily Milliyet.

Last year, some 3.5 million Russian tourists visited Turkey, where they enjoyed visa-free travel. Many of them chose “all-inclusive” packages offered by hotels in the country’s Mediterranean and Aegean resorts.

Oleg Safonov, the head of the Russian Tourism Agency, told RSN, a Moscow-based radio, that Bulgaria and Greece were in action to replace Turkey.

Greece has opened new visa offices in Russia and employed more staff, in a bid to break a 2013 record of 1.5 million Russian visitors, he said.

Bulgaria, meanwhile, has stopped demanding fingerprints from Russian visitors.

Ankara and Moscow have been at odds since Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet operating in Syria on Nov 24, 2015, for insistent violation of its airspace.

Scheduled flights between Russia and Turkey by the two countries’ flag carriers have dropped almost 50 percent along with the number of passengers after the downing of Russian jet since then, a Turkish tourism executive said last week.

Turkey blackmails Bulgarian municipalities over the Armenian genocide

March 15, 2016 By administrator

By Georgi Gotev | EurActiv.com

armenian_genocide Three Bulgarian municipalities will not receive EU funding under the cross-border cooperation programs between Bulgaria and Turkey. The reason is that Turkey bans partnerships with municipalities who recognise the Armenian genocide.

The Mayor of Edirne, Recep Gürkan, is quoted as saying that the decision of the Turkish foreign ministry is final:

“Nobody can interfere (with) how we will name a street or a park,” retorted the mayor of Haskovo Dobri Belivanov.

Before prohibiting Edirne to work with these communities on projects, Turkey formally ended diplomatic relations with their mayors. With Haskovo, for example, the twinning was frozen.

Brussels can’t do anything

Bulgaria expels Turkish diplomat for conducting Islamist activity

Bulgaria has declared a Turkish diplomat working at the Consulate General in Burgas persona non-grata, the Bulgarian press reported yesterday (21 February).

Background

Hundreds of thousands of Christian Armenians died during forced removals in 1915 by the Ottoman army from what is now Eastern Turkey, but Turkey denies that the move constituted genocide.

The country’s attitude vis-à-vis the bloodshed in 1915 is one of the defining aspects of modern Turkish diplomacy, with any use of the term ‘genocide’ either within Turkey or abroad swiftly denounced by Ankara.

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was killed in 2007 after openly saying that the events of 1915 were genocide.

Bulgarian MP denounces sweet speech of his Turkish colleague

March 13, 2016 By administrator

default Bulgaria shouldn’t have election campaign in Turkish.

Bulgarian MP from the Parliamentary Group of Patriotic Front, Slavcho Atanasov, told the aforementioned at a parliament session, responding to the speech of Lütfi Mestan, leader of Bulgarian ethnic Turks’ Movement for Right and Freedoms (HÖH) party , Bulgarian Focus information agency reports. The campaign relates to the presidential elections which are to be held in Bulgaria in 2016.

Mestan made a smart move defending the Turkish language by the history of the Slavs, showing off his knowledge of Old Bulgarian. He reminded that Cyril and Methodius invented a writing system so that the Slavs could study the word of God in their native tongue, which wasn’t welcomed under the doctrines of that time. Following this, Methodius went on citing from the rostrum the texts in Old Bulgarian.

After this, he showed the invoice for a fine, which was imposed on him by the governor of Razgrad for addressing the voters in Turkish during the opening of election campaign.

However, Slavcho Atanasov objected to him. According to the former, there is nothing wrong with talking to God in one’s tongue. But the election campaign in Bulgaria should be held in the official language, Bulgarian, Atanasov stressed.

In 2015, Slavcho Atanasov participated in a march commemorating the Armenian Genocide in Plovdiv city. And on April 24, he was the only politician from Plovdiv to visit the liturgy held in the city’s Armenian church of St. Kevork.

Bulgaria officially dismisses reports on Erdogan’s invitiation

March 3, 2016 By administrator

f56d84b8a5195c_56d84b8a5199c.thumb Bulgarian Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson Betina Zhoteva rejected reports that Bulgaria had invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to celebrate the Day of Liberation from Ottoman oppression. The official representative labeled the rumors as “crude manipulation” and ” not consistent with reality.” Zhoteva’s comments came at a telephone interview with TASS agency.

“Among participants in official celebrations are heads of diplomatic missions accredited in Sofia. Rumors about inviting the Turkish president are a crude manipulation and not consistent with reality,” Zhoteva said.

As reported earlier, Bulgaria invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to celebrate the Day of Liberation from Ottoman oppression but did not invite Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier today that the Kremlin has not received an invitation from Bulgaria for Putin to attend the Day of Liberation of Bulgaria but respects this decision of a sovereign country.

Note, that the Day of Liberation in Bulgaria is a national holiday. Bulgaria got its independence after Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. As a result of the war, Ottoman Empire was deprived of a large portion of its territory, and the Bulgarian state was established on March 3, 1878.

Turkey consulate attaché in Bulgaria is declared persona non grata

February 23, 2016 By administrator

turkish attache The Religious Affairs Attaché of the Turkish Consulate General in the Bulgarian town of Burgas, Uğur Emiroğlu, has been declared persona non grata.

The Bulgarian authorities have accused Emiroğlu of interfering in the internal affairs of Bulgaria, and given him 72 hours to leave the country, according to Sözcü daily newspaper of Turkey.

And the Turkish authorities have acted in response to their Bulgarian counterparts by declaring the Consul General of Bulgaria in Istanbul, Angel Angelov, persona non grata, and giving him 72 hours to leave Turkey.