site.btaPresident Slams PM in Comments for Press

Sofia, February 15 (BTA) - President Rumen Radev slammed Prime Minister Boyko Borissov for his remarks in a bTV interview on Wednesday and for downplaying the tangible problems of this country. Radev was speaking to reporters from various media outlets during a visit to the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) on Thursday.

The President said that it was "a gross manipulation to mention people from my administration together with the name of Mr [Delyan] Peevski". He was referring to the Prime Minister's words in the said TV interview that the President's chief of cabinet Ivo Hristov is to blame for the tension between the government and the President's Office.

Without saying Hristov's name, Borissov said: "There is a person in the President's Office who writes Radev's speeches. A media personality. I remember him from [satellite and cable TV operating between 2003 and 2013] BBT, Peevski's television."

In a Facebook post, Hristov denied the Prime Minister's hint and said he worked for BBT before it was acquired by controversial businessman- Delyan Peevski, who is now an MP of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

The President also said that Borissov "a received a Christmas gift: full and unconditional support" from MRF founder and honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan.

The President recalled that "Mr Borissov's party voted unanimously in support of a bill on [the failed] Corpbank" and went on to ask whether the Prime Minister "has had and continues to have meetings with Mr Peevski". "Has he had and does he still have shared business interests with Mr Pesvski? Has he distributed and does he continue to distribute public procurements benefiting Mr Peevski?" the President asked.

The President said that the true reason for the tension between the government and himself is "the downplaying of problems concerning the national sovereignty; the sham ad hoc committee about the new fighter jets contract and the shameless lies surrounding it; the discontinued modernization and waste in the Armed Forces; [inadequate] government decisions and spending; the cementing of corruption in the new law [on fighting high-level corruption]; the practice of proposing changes to legislation - important changes - between initial and conclusive voting without public consultation and without asking the competent institutions for opinion; the collapse of foreign investment; the lack of efficient policy on the development of human capital; the deplorable pensions and wages after long years of boasting about economic growth and financial stability".

Of the upcoming meeting in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna between the EU leaders and Turkish President Erdogan, he said that "it is important for Bulgaria's role as host to go beyond serving refreshments". "Bulgaria - and I expect this from the Prime Minister - should ask Mr Erdogan the questions which have long been awaiting answers: about guaranteeing Turkey's noninterference in Bulgaria's internal affairs and election process, about noninterference in the spiritual life of Bulgarian Muslims, about compensations to the Thracian refugees," said the President.

He was referring to 52,000 ethnic Bulgarians, who were forced to resettle to Bulgaria from Eastern Thrace in Turkey after the 1913 Second Balkan War, leaving behind land properties which, according to an official document prepared by the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry in 1983, were worth over 10,000 million US dollars at that time.