“We are convinced that the Jewish people’s relation to Jerusalem is indisputable and are not indifferent to the wish of the Jewish population of Israel and of world Jewry and to the right of Israel, being a sovereign state, to decide which city will be its capital and to insist that it be internationally recognised”
JERUSALEM—Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said his country will not move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but he added that that as a sovereign state Israel has a right to decide which city is its capital.
“The status of Jerusalem as the sacred site of the three monotheistic religions should be agreed in the course of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that will lead to an accord on final status of the Palestinian territories,” Borissov told the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum which met this week in Jerusalem.
“We are convinced that the Jewish people’s relation to Jerusalem is indisputable and are not indifferent to the wish of the Jewish population of Israel and of world Jewry and to the right of Israel, being a sovereign state, to decide which city will be its capital and to insist that it be internationally recognised,” Borissov said.
Two countries have followed President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem: Guatemala and Paraguay. Bulgaria’s northern neighbour Romania has said that it would make the same move.
Borissov, whose country currently holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU Council of ministers, praised Israel for assisting Europe. “Had it not been for Israel, Europe and European civilization would have been in bigger jeopardy in the face of rising radicalism and religious fundamentalism in the Middle East,” he said.
“I express my respect for the State of Israel and appreciate its extremely important role regarding the future of the region,” he added.
Bulgaria-Israel relations “are based on clear principles of interaction, on mutual confidence and on shared values. This is the guarantee that our relations go beyond our personal friendship and deepen so that they have a long-term horizon,” Borissov said. “There has never been even one moment over the years when we could not count on each other.”
During a meeting with Borissov on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked him for Blugaria’s ‘’consistent defense of Israel in international forums, including in the EU.’’
‘’ It’s time that all of Europe’s leaders understood that Israel is the one that defends the interests, our common interests in the Middle East, both in terms of security and in many, many other ways,’’ he said.
He thanked the Bulgarian premier for his country’s “efforts against antisemitism, and our common battle against radical Islam and the terrorism it espouses that claimed a tragic cost of lives, Israelis and Bulgarians, on the soil of Bulgaria;’’
Our friendship goes back many, many years. We will never forget how the people of Bulgaria laid on the train tracks and prevented the deportation of Jews in Sofia,’’ Netanyahu said in a reference to efforts of Bulgarian citizens, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and by eminent public figures and intellectuals to save the entire Bulgarian Jewish community of approximately 50,000” during WWII.
Borissov told the AJC Global Forum that “newly gathered facts confirm that in the years of the Holocaust the Bulgarian consuls in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and other European states issued some 20 000 transit Bulgarian visas to Jews from Western Europe, including children.”