Bulgarian diplomats on the expulsion of ambassadors – reasons and behind the scenes – 2024-07-31 18:30:49

Zdravko Popov, diplomat, ambassador in Prague, Institute for Public Policy, member of BDD

This scandal developed very quickly. The most interesting is the chain reaction that occurred outside of the Anglo-Russian conflict – the unification of the leaders of countries in the EU and beyond. A solidarity position was taken very quickly without being aware of how true the political accusations were. If the goal is truth, it should have been left to Scotland Yard, Britain’s investigative journalism, to do its job and produce facts that would convince the societies of Europe of the rightness of these actions. It is not said that there is no Russian interference, but it is not clear enough what exactly that interference is. The hysteria with which this scandal developed suggests that someone wants to restore the Cold War period.

Georgi Dimitrov, diplomat, ambassador to Serbia, co-founder of BDD

How, with all the excitement surrounding the “Skripal” case, somehow, on the fly and unnoticed, basic principles and practices of diplomacy are changing? Foreign diplomats are prosecuted when they have spied or otherwise wronged the country of accreditation. Now they are being prosecuted for something that happened in a third country. And since reciprocation usually follows, you also get your own diplomats expelled for something that happened somewhere and they can’t be held responsible for. That is, you can now expel anyone from everywhere and for everything. Because if they are proven spies, one wonders why you haven’t kicked them out by now. And if they are not spies, one wonders, how do you start a showdown with innocent people because you are some Skripal, for example. Right? And for Skripal himself, does anyone believe that all this is happening because of him, in order to build a position and policy depending on the presence or absence of evidence. Obviously not, but the real reasons are not articulated. I consider it absurd to revolve everything around a traitor. However, I don’t want my children to go to war because of him.

Plamen Grozdanov, diplomat, UN representative, ambassador to Russia, businessman, member of the BDD Board of Directors

One thing is clear – that there are many unexplained things in this case. There is more to see. Tension awaits us. So far, there is no conclusive evidence that Russia was behind the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
It is always better to negotiate, to look for compromise solutions, to solve problems without escalating the situation to the extreme, but unfortunately, I I predict that in the coming months we will have a very serious tension between the EU, the USA and many countries and Russia. It is very difficult to put out such a fire. There is no winner in this fightUnfortunately”,

Lyubomir Kyuchukov, diplomat, ambassador, deputy minister of foreign affairs, Institute of Economics and International Relations, member of the Board of Directors of BDD

If this is the final Bulgarian position, then it seeks the balance between European political solidarity and the absence of a conclusion from the unfinished investigation. But international relations cannot be a race track to see who will condemn a country the fastest and most severely /in this case Russia/, and the serious risk is that the spiral of confrontation after a certain stage becomes self-sufficient and acquires an internal dynamic that easily lends itself to control and reversal.

Simeon Nikolov, diplomat, deputy Minister of Defense, member of the BDD

The Skripal scandal is only one element of a much broader plan to escalate tensions with two goals: First, to create conditions for the permanent isolation of Russia, to unite the allied countries and to strengthen the “front” belt from the Baltic to Bulgaria, and Second, a gradual evolution of the cold war into a hot one. The scandal is linked to events in Syria, the furor caused by the capture of US, British and other military personnel behind terrorist groups, plans for a chemical weapons provocation foiled by Russian intelligence, a shift in US strategy in Syria to push back Iran and Russia etc. With such a destabilization of international relations, it will not be possible to reach any agreements on Syria.

Violation of international proceduresfirst by Great Britain, which instead of turning first to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, turned to the UNSC in order to internationalize the scandal, and secondly by the EU, which instead of waiting the three weeks needed to examine the relevant samples, brought in the Council to withdraw its ambassador from Moscow and organize unprecedented pressure on member states, indicates intent on escalating tensions.

The second sign of a deliberate campaign is the refusal to publicize any versions of the investigation guidelines, the refusal to fulfill international obligations to ensure the access of the Russian side to its citizen, the release of false data about the alleged nerve-paralytic substance.

That is, open war is being waged, in which the true causes of the poisoning are of no importance. The false, illogical, tendentious arguments used are offensive to any sane person, but war is war.

There is the artificially created scandal potential to lead to destabilization of the political situation in some countries because of the final and responsible decisions of the rulers. Changing the team of the American president with an extremely militant one is very telling. The mass mutual expulsion of diplomats is a blow against the intelligence that uses diplomatic missions as a cover and is one of the characteristic pre-war signs. If by some miracle the spiral is not stopped, the upcoming NATO meeting, which may be called off early, will be able to push some final decisions, including on nuclear strategy, on the conditions for triggering Article 5 and etc.

The mistake of the Bulgarian government was that it did not get ahead of Austria with the idea and proposal of a mediator in negotiations with Russia.

The discussion in the coming days in Bulgaria will be carried over to the absolutely invented and wrong plane “EU or Russia”.

Dr. Ognyan Gharkov, diplomat, ambassador in Prague, member of BDD

Who needs us to believe for the umpteenth time, without serious medialized – to some extent at least – evidence, that this time the Island Prime Minister will not apologize post factum again, as for Iraq, where thousands of innocents died? Or for the umpteenth time to act like serfs with the recognition of Kosovo? What did Bulgaria gain in this case, apart from cooled relations with the real and eternal neighbor Serbia?

They oppose the lack of evidence of the first signal political-prop-mainstream-clichés, “based on human values”. Insinuated by descendants of the ex-colonizers. Even if we abstract with sadness from the brutal bombings over the capital and other of our settlements 74 years ago with the active participation of the alcoholic-Bulgarophobe from Albion, which brought thousands of human victims and destruction, will someone return the life of the innocent Sergey Antonov? To other broken human destinies with the so-called Bulgarian trace in Rome, will someone compensate the Bulgarian state for the harm and damage caused to it, or will we continue to keep silent even about the apology of Pope John Paul II?

So far, the withdrawal seems more like a suitable flexible compromise response.

Valentin Radomirski, diplomat, ambassador, member of the BDD

The question lies in the wavering position that, in my opinion, the Bulgarian government has shown. Because only a day before it was claimed that we would not pursue and that we had cast doubt on Britain’s claims. Now this is how we show solidarity. To me, that means that there was quite a lot of pressure to make this move, which is actually a compromise between the previous statements and that we still have to show some kind of alliance commitment.

For me, in fact, the introduction of the presumption of guilt instead of the presumption of innocence is a sharp violation of the rules of the established international order.

The question of solidarity is existential for both NATO and the EU. We have all witnessed, especially in the last two years, the problems in NATO and in the EU.

Skripal is just an occasion. This is part of the measures in connection with the huge changes that have occurred in international relations. And I am convinced that right now in all the countries of the West the elites are feverishly (as Sayce and Pico once drew the maps of the Middle East) drawing the new maps. I don’t mean physical boundaries, but above all spheres of influence.

Bulgaria has intellectual capacity, but no institutional capacity at the moment. For years, we also destroyed a number of institutions in terms of personnel… This is Bulgaria’s problem at the moment and it must be solved with a consistent consensus policy, which currently does not exist.