site.btaUPDATED PM Glavchev: Strengthening NATO, Support for Ukraine Are Key Topics at NATO Summit

Strengthening NATO and support for Ukraine are the key topics at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., Bulgaria’s caretaker Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Dimitar Glavchev said on Wednesday. He spoke to the media as he arrived for a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of heads of state and government on the sidelines of the NATO summit.

Glavchev noted that the overarching issue is how to make NATO stronger, adding that the focus is on collective defence.

Identifying support for Ukraine as another major theme, Glavchev said that "it is clear to everyone that one side in the war is the aggressor, Russia, and the other is the victim, Ukraine.

NATO's assistance to Ukraine is based on international law, according to which every state has the right to independence and territorial integrity, the caretaker Prime Minister stressed. He said that Bulgaria's stance is the same as that of the Alliance as a whole.

Glavchev said that this has already been confirmed by seven National Assembly decisions. He noted that what he is presenting at the Summit is the Bulgarian position developed by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence and approved by the Council of Ministers. "It reflects the consistent Bulgarian position in support of Ukraine, and there is nothing surprising about it," he said.

The caretaker Prime Minister said that he had conferred with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at many forums recently. "Naturally, we will meet with him here as well," Glavchev further noted, adding that Zelenskyy knows that he can count on Bulgaria as a supporter of Ukraine in the war.

The Bulgarian head of government said that he "managed to exchange a few words" with US President Joe Biden during Tuesday’s event commemorating the 75th anniversary of NATO, adding that "they were sufficient". "We confirmed that we are a reliable and loyal NATO ally, and for his part, [Biden] said that we have a key role to play on the eastern flank of the Alliance," Glavchev said. He pointed out that the US President had explicitly mentioned Bulgaria in his speech at the anniversary ceremony.

Glavchev added that he had conferred the most with his counterpart from the Republic of North Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski, at Tuesday’s event. "We share the view that tensions should be eased and bilateral relations normalized. That being said, I told him that candidates for membership in the European Union must comply with the requirements. This is the position not only of Bulgaria but also of the EU," Glavchev said.

During the NATO Summit, Glavchev also held talks with France's President Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama.