Borisov-Parvanov's Tit for Tat: Minister to Go with Discredited Ambassadors

Politics » DOMESTIC | December 18, 2010, Saturday // 10:10
Bulgaria: Borisov-Parvanov's Tit for Tat: Minister to Go with Discredited Ambassadors PM Borisov (left) ad President Parvanov exchange lukewarm greetings during a coincidential meeting in November 2010. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian PM Borisov has suggested he would dismiss his Diaspora Minister, a former collaborator with the communist regime's secret service once President Parvanov recalls all ambassadors with the same kind of record.

After earlier this week the so called Files' Commission, an independent body digging into the records of the former State Security (DS), i.e. the intelligence and secret police of communist Bulgaria, announced that 41 acting Bulgarian ambassadors and consuls were DS collaborators, the Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov have been tangled in a war of words with President Parvanov.

Borisov and Mladenov have demanded the recall of all "discredited" diplomats arguing those have lost the trust of the respective host nations, while Parvanov, who in 2006 himself was revealed to have worked as an agent under the name "Gotse", has defended the people with communist secret service past. Parvanov's signature will be necessary to recall any of the diplomats in question.

Parvanov and the Socialist Party that he formerly chair have slammed Borisov for double standards since Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov, a prominent historian, is a member of the Cabinet despite being known to have worked for DS himself.

"Bozhidar Dimitrov is our only exception. The difference between him and the diplomats is that he participated in the 2009 Parliamentary Elections as a majority candidate, and everybody knew that he had a DS file, but people voted for him nonetheless, and elected him to Parliament," Borisov declared on the Bulgarian National TV late Friday night speaking through a video conference from Brussels, where he took part in the EU Council summit on Thursday and Friday.

"Dimitrov is not the same case as the diplomats. He is not dependent unlike the diplomats who are afraid any moment that they could be made to come out, and can therefore be manipulated by those who recruited them as agents," Borisov said.

He did suggest what could be described as a tit for tat deal with Parvanov saying he would let Dimitrov go as soon as the ambassadors with DS past are recalled.

"I am ready to let him go if we decide to uphold the principle of having no former agents of the former State Security in the state government. If Parvanov recalls the ambassadors, we will let Dimitrov go. I will do it, however painful it might be. I just want this entire episode to be over in a way that our Euro-Atlantic partners would have trust in Bulgaria," the Prime Minister stated.

"The scandal with the ambassadors who were communist service agents comes at a very bad time when our government is trying to convince our EU partners that we are ready to join the Schengen Area, and to protect EU's external borders," he explained.

Borisov further added that officials in Brussels and EU member state leaders are very worried by Parvanov's statements that many of the diplomats with DS past have contributed substantially to Bulgaria's EU and NATO integration in the past 20 years.

"I had meetings with a number of people who are overawed and wondering what exactly this "State Security" was, and why it is still so influential today," the PM revealed.

He also criticized the former government of the three-way coalition led by Sergey Stanishev for adopting a law to reveal the names of those who served as Bulgarian foreign intelligence officers and had DS past.

"It is equally bad that Bulgaria sent ambassadors who were collaborators and former agents of DS, and that we had to reveal our actual intelligence officers. The law did not differentiate between the professional intelligence officers and those who were collaborators and informants of DS. This sin will be on the conscience of Stanishev, Dogan and Saxe-Coburg. What is more, they should have pulled out gradually the ambassadors with DS past rather than sending new ones," Borisov said referring to the leaders of the former three-way coalition.

On Tuesday, a special Bulgarian panel, investigating the communist-era police files, known as the Files' Commission, revealed that 192 Bulgarian Foreign Ministry employees have had ties with the former communist State Security.

Among those 192, 33 are diplomats currently working abroad Nikolay Mladenov pointed out, these include Ambassadors, Consuls and Deputy Directors of diplomatic missions in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, the UN (New York and Geneva), Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Russia, China, Sweden, Romania, Norway, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria, Egypt, Bosnia, Greece, the Vatican,Slovakia, Albania, Georgia, Armenia and Venezuela are among those exposed as former Bulgarian State Security's collaborators.

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Tags: Nikolay Mladenov, Foreign Minister, Bulgarian President, Georgi Parvanov, Ambassadors, diplomats, DS, State Security, collaborators, state security files, communist regime, Communist Bulgaria, Boyko Borisov, Bozhidar Dimitrov, Diaspora Minister, intelligence

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