Bulgaria is monitoring the situation in the Middle East very closely, a Coordination Center has been established, and one of our first tasks is to withdraw a large group of Bulgarians from Israel, who are presenting an exceptionally high-quality film there - “Bulgarian Soul of the Holy Land”. But as far as I understand at the moment, this is impossible, because the airports in Israel are not working. This is how Vice President Iliana Yotova commented on the situation in the Middle East over the past two days and the exchange of airstrikes between Israel and Iran.
“There was a lightning-fast reaction and a lightning-fast meeting with the heads of the services by President Rumen Radev yesterday”, the Vice President added.
Yotova described the situation in the Middle East as more than serious and added that measures must be taken in at least three directions.
“First - as soon as possible, with the efforts of the entire international community, including the Bulgarian state, to insist not just on limiting the conflict between the two sides, but on an immediate cessation of hostilities. Because the conflict has all the prerequisites to be expanded if the so-called axis of resistance, which is on the side of Iran, is included. Then the expansion is inevitable”, said the vice president.
According to her, the signals from the International Atomic Energy Agency are very worrying.
„The second direction is the economic consequences, including for the whole of Europe. I do not understand why the position of the President of the European Commission, as well as the European institutions in general, is so vague for now. In this very serious situation, we cannot be satisfied with a few sentences on any social network. We have a High Representative for Foreign Policy, and in such a situation, the minimum that needs to be done is to convene an extraordinary summit within the EU with the participation of all the leaders of all European countries”, Yotova also stated.
She is of the opinion that much more decisive intervention by international organizations, including the UN, is missing.