Bulgaria foreign minister makes comments on central issues

 Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov made comments on central issues, speaking Friday both with journalists at parliament and at Friday’s parliamentary blitz control session.
“Bulgaria will insist at the EU interior ministers’ meeting on not allowing new routes for refugees across the Bulgarian-Turkish land border and via the Black Sea,” Daniel Mitov said.
He commented there was no increased migration pressure at the Bulgarian-Greek border.
He was explicit no one was “insured” against anything after the closing of the “Balkan route”.
“The operational working group responsible for prevention of such risks held a sitting. Training exercises were held at the border on Saturday and were attended personally by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. We are prepared to face any kind of risk and I do not think there are grounds for concern at present,” the minister commented.
“No one has said Turkey is ready for EU membership,” Daniel Mitov also said.
According to him, there is no acceleration of the process of EU membership.
“What could happen at the most is the opening of new negotiation chapters. This would mean new conditions that would have to be met,” he added.
In Mitov’s words, no exception is made for any countries.
“If a decision is possibly made on some kind of visa liberalisation with Turkey, a date should be set in advance and it should be clear when Turkey will begin implementing the agreement on refugee readmission. I am happy with the fact Bulgarian-Turkish working groups will start work on the bilateral readmission protocol on March 15 and 16,” the official stated.
The cabinet member also touched upon another matter.
“Bulgaria should work so that the [European Commission’s] report under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) is repealed but it needs to have an efficient judicial system before that,” he said.
As regards the Reformist Bloc’s declaration in which the formation insists on continuing the monitoring report on Bulgaria, Mitov commented it was clear Bulgaria should work so that the mechanism in question was repealed.
“We should do our job before that. It should be clear the judicial reform has to be implemented. It is supposed to lead to an independent, fast, and efficient judicial system, which is in the interest of all Bulgarian citizens,” the minister stated.
In his words, with or without a mechanism, Bulgaria should ensure a reform for Bulgarian citizens to guarantee an independent judicial system. 
Mitov’s next comments were replies to questions posed by MPs.
“Preaching in churches in Bulgarian in Edirne was not restricted,” he said, speaking at the parliamentary blitz control session in reply to a question posed by Mihail Mikov, Chairperson of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Leftist Bulgaria parliamentary group.
Mikov said he had waited for a reply from the minister since the start of the year.
According to the socialist leader, Bulgarians in Edirne do not want to attend religious services held in Greek.
Mihail Mikov asked how the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry would ensure preaching in Bulgarian.
Daniel Mitov commented the matter concerned the relations between the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
“Religious institutions are separated from the executive. The check conducted by the Foreign Ministry has proved preaching in Bulgarian has not been banned or restricted,” Daniel Mitov noted, adding statements to the contrary were made by separate citizens.
“We are continuing to monitor through our consulate general in Edirne the development of the situation but preaching in Bulgarian has not been restricted,” he remarked.
Mihail Mikov expressed his hope the statement would be heard by the Bulgarian citizens and priests in Edirne.
The minister also answered a question about the violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations on the part of the Turkish ambassador and the consuls general of the Republic of Turkey in Bulgaria’s Burgas and Plovdiv.
“I have left it to my Turkish counterpart to decide if Ambassador [Suleyman] Gokce contributes to the development of our bilateral relations,” he said.
Mitov explained the attempts of accredited diplomats at interference in Bulgaria’s internal affairs, irrespective of their country, would have concrete consequences.
In his words, declaring employees of a diplomatic mission persona non grata is envisaged in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Daniel Mitov remarked the relations between Bulgaria and Turkey had a long history.
In his view, Bulgarian and Turkish people realise how important good neighbourly relations are.
“Our relations with Turkeu have a solid and stable basis. There is a series of priorities to realise,” the minister noted.
“Bulgarian-Turkish bilateral relations were damaged around Christmas,” the government member noted.
“The Foreign Ministry took measures and did its best to prevent the conflict from growing bigger,” he stressed.
The Foreign Minister pointed out if a country ascertained interference in its internal affairs, it had all instruments to tackle it without reducing bilateral relations to a “low basis”.
The official also touched upon Bulgaria’s UN Secretary-General nomination.
“The Foreign Ministry has formulated an action plan and concept for Irina Bokova’s campaign to become UN Secretary-General,” he said replying to a question posed by Kristian Vigenin, MP with the BSP Leftist Bulgaria parliamentary group.
Vigenin expressed his content with the fact the procedure concerning Ms Bokova’s nomination had ended with a letter of Mitov’s.
Ms Bokova, who heads UNESCO, was officially nominated as Bulgaria’s UN Secretary-General in February.

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