The Minister of Foreign Affairs Svetlan Stoev spoke with his Ukrainian colleague Dmytro Kuleba
23 August 2021 News
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Svetlan Stoev spoke with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba in Kiev and the two discussed the traditionally good and friendly relations between Bulgaria and Ukraine, the possibilities for their strengthening, including in the context of the Bulgarian ethnic community in the country.
Minister Stoev stressed that for Bulgaria, the 200, 000 Bulgarian community in Ukraine constitutes a natural link for the friendship between the two countries, and he expressed his gratitude for the preservation of the Bolgrad region in Odessa region in 2020 as an independent territorial unit with Bolgrad being the administrative center. In this context, the Bulgarian Minister noted that Bulgaria would be happy to receive in timely fashion an official response to its expectations to open a consular office in Bolgrad, which would facilitate the connection of our compatriots with Bulgaria.
During the conversation, as a sign of further support for Ukraine, Bulgaria’s readiness to donate 50, 000 doses of “AstraZeneca” coronavirus vaccines to the country was reaffirmed. So far, through its official development assistance only, Bulgaria has supported Ukraine through projects worth over EUR 850, 000.
The meeting with Dmytro Kuleba was part of the participation of Minister Stoev in the inaugural session of the International Crimean Platform Summit, which aims at increasing awareness of the international community towards Crimea’s illegal annexation and the need to reintegrate the peninsula into Ukraine. The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs thanked for the support to the Crimean Platform and for Bulgaria’s consistent policy in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty, its territorial integrity, the non-recognition policy of Cremea’s annexation and the city of Sevastopol and for the support for Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic perspective.
Minister Stoev invited Dmytro Kuleba to visit Bulgaria and the two agreed that the visit would be preceded by political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries at the level of deputy ministers.
Aside from that, within the forum, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister carried out brief discussions with his counterpart from Turkey Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu about the situation in Afghanistan, with the Foreign Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia Bujar Osmani, with whom they discussed the continuation of the negotiation process at an expert level, with the Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, whom he thanked for the assistance in evacuating Bulgarian citizens from Afghanistan. Brief discussions were also held with the foreign ministers of Austria, Ireland, Montenegro, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of Croatia, and the Prime Minister and Military Minister of Sweden.