BULGARIA’S FOREIGN MINISTER: THE READMISSION AGREEMENT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED AT EU-TURKEY LEVEL

After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, there are serious imbalances in the region of the Black Sea. There is a buildup of armed forces by Russia. This leads to the necessity for NATO to demonstrate its readiness to protect its allies and to balance the presence, Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov said in an interview for BNT on 22nd of June.

The “advance presence” has always been in the form of drills. Under the Montreux Convention, warships of non-Black Sea powers cannot remain in the Black Sea longer than 21 days. This means that regional formats are strongly limited, he said.

As regards the discussed joint initiative of Romania and Turkey in the Black Sea, Mitov said that Bulgaria had not undertaken any commitment for participation. There is no need to overdramatize things. No one has any intention to attack anybody, he noted.

Bulgaria will keep its opportunities for negotiations, for talks, that would lead at the end of the day to a balanced format of drills in the Black Sea, such as the format that exists at the moment. We have constant cooperation with our NATO partners in the Black Sea, Mitov added.

In his words, the readmission issue should be discussed not only within the framework of the relations between Bulgaria and Turkey, but on EU-Turkey level. Turkey has ratified the agreement but it should accept how it is going to implement the agreement itself. Mitov said it was a legal issue which needed to be resolved. Bulgaria insists that Turkey complies with the readmission agreement and Ankara should show that it is applicable and works effectively.

The situation at the border is calm, migration pressure on our border has not increased, we continue our cooperation with Turkey’s authorities and with the other neighboring countries, particularly with Greece, with which we have had a very high level of bilateral relations and established mechanisms, which allow us to control the situation, Mitov said.

According to him, a lot of work needs to be done in order to create a frame for control of the external borders for destroying human trafficking networks and working with third countries.

Daniel Mitov also commented the topic of the forthcoming UK refendurum on EU membership. He said it would be difficult to image EU without the UK in it and expressed hope the UK would not leave.