Bulgarian President reserved in comments on expulsion of Russian diplomats
Bulgarian President Roumen Radev told reporters in Madrid that he hoped that Prime Minister Kiril Petkov would have carefully considered the decision to expel 70 Russian diplomats, both in terms of scale and consequences.
“I cannot discuss this issue because I do not have the necessary information,” said Radev, who is heading the Bulgarian delegation to the Nato summit.
“I hope that the outgoing Prime Minister has made this decision on the basis of solid and reliable information and has considered it well – both in terms of scale and consequences,” he said.
Petkov announced the expulsions on June 28, saying that the diplomats had been identified as working against the interests of Bulgaria. They have been given until July 3 to leave the country.
GERB MP and former foreign minister Ekaterina Zaharieva called into question whether it was a matter of 70 diplomats.
Zaharieva said that there were only 43 diplomats at the Russian embassy in Sofia: “The rest are most likely service personnel, and some of them have diplomatic clearance. Not the entire Russian embassy in Bulgaria – they are many more people”.
As The Sofia Globe reported earlier, the decision to expel the Russians also sparked sharp remarks in Parliament – for and against – and in television interviews on June 29.
(Archive photo: president.bg)
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