Borissov meets Poroshenko: ‘Ukraine has an important place in the foreign policy priorities of Bulgaria’
Ukraine has an important place among the foreign policy priorities of Bulgaria, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov told President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv on May 26.
Borissov is the first Bulgarian head of government to visit Ukaine in 14 years, his government’s media service said.
The Bulgarian Prime Minister said that the outcome of the crisis in Ukraine would be achieved by all sides observing the Minsk Accords, and expressed the expectation that this could be achieved through negotiations.
Borissov described peace as the “most holy thing” and the “magic word”. “We must do our best to preserve the peace,” he said.
He said that he considered the construction of infrastructure as an opportunity to achieve stability, economic growth and improve the incomes and lives of the people.
Borissov said that Bulgaria and Ukraine had a relationship of friendship, “based on the historical, cultural, linguistic and religious closeness between our peoples and the presence of the largest Bulgarian ethnic community outside the country”.
He said that a Joint Intergovernmental Commission session is expected to be held in autumn in order to examine the possibilities for co-operation between the universities of both countries and to support the education in the field of higher education.
Poroshenko thanked Bulgaria for its position in support of the country’s territorial integrity (a reference to Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukraine) as well as the Bulgarian government’s attitude to issues such as visa facilitation and economic ties with EU countries.
He said that he relied on Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU, as it posed the question of the Western Balkans, also to consider the EU’s initiative for the Eastern Partnership.
For us, connectivity and especially the construction of corridor № 4 is of utmost importance, Poroshenko said during the talks, the Bulgarian government statement said.
Borissov will remain in Ukraine on May 27, for the unveiling of a monument to Dimitar Peshev, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly at the time of the Second World War who played a key role in successful opposition to the deportation of Bulgarian Jews to the Holocaust.
According to Bulgarian media reports, Borissov will visit Russia before the end of May 2018.
(Photo: government.bg)
