Bulgaria's foreign minister is attending in Athens the three-way discussions of the Balkan member states of the European Union, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania.

Ivaylo Kalfin is scheduled to confer tete-a-tete with his Greek counterpart Theodora Bakoyianni. Later in the day the meeting will be joined by Romania's Foreign Minister Adrian Cioroianu.

The agenda of the three-way forum includes the prospects for speeding up the EU integration of the countries of the Western Balkans, the status of Kosovo, and the opportunities for developing regional cooperation.

The foreign ministers of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania are unanimous that a unilateral solution to the issue of the future status of Kosovo is inadequate, since the settlement should be international.

"The status of Kosovo is an important and sensitive issue and Bulgaria has always insisted that dialogue is the most important factor to find its solution," Bulgarian Minister Ivaylo Kalfin said earlier this month after meeting his Serbian counterpart.

He expressed the hope that the sides involved will not resort to military power, but will explore all political venues for finding a way out.

"At this moment we must back the negotiating efforts of the Troika, in which the EU has an important role to play both now and in the future. No matter what the result will be, the international community and the EU in particular must stay committed to the Kosovo issue," the Greek Foreign Minister Theodora Bakoyianni said during a visit to Bucharest at the end of November.

"Romania and Greece equally signal the importance of good neighborliness, the utter prerequisite for a genuine alliance," Romanian Foreign Minister Adrian Cioroianu said, recalling that Romania, in the late 1990s, settled its relations with Ukraine and Hungary, two neighboring states with which it had problems in history.

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