Bulgaria will most likely follow suit and expel Salah Sukkar, Charge d'Affaires of the Embassy of Syria.

The planned step was reported by news portal dnevnik.bg, citing sources from Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry.

If this happens, diplomatic relations will drop to a lower level and the contact with Bulgarian authorities will be established through another official of the Syrian embassy.

So far, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Canada and Australia have taken steps to expel the Syrian diplomats in a bid to step up pressure on Damascus amid continuing violence by government forces against civilians and opposition members.

Following Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov's instructions, Deputy Foreign Minister Ivan Naydenov met Monday with Salah Sukkar to discuss the killings of more than 100 Syrian civilians, including 30 children, in the town of Hula and the escalation of violence over the last few days.

Deputy Minister Naydenov was adamant in his call to the Syrian authorities for strict adherence to the peace plan proposed by joint United Nations-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan.

"The killings of civilians have continued for over a year, which is absolutely unacceptable. The violence in Syria must be stopped immediately," Ivan Naydenov stated.

Bulgaria's Deputy Foreign Minister called for an in-depth investigation of the massacre in Hula.

Representatives of three Syrian opposition movements met Monday and Tuesday in the Bulgarian town of Pravets to discuss developments in their homeland.

The meeting, co-ordinated and facilitated by the Bulgrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adopted a declaration on the recent bloodshed in Houla and other cities in Syria.

The declaration called on the UN Security Council and the international community to immediately interevene in support of the Syrian citizens against what opposition representatives see as criminal actions by President Bashar Al-Assad.

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