Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev has said “further evidence had been added” to an investigation implicating Hezbollah in the July 2012 bus bombing in Burgas that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver. There had been “no change” in Bulgaria’s view that there was a “justified assumption” Hezbollah was behind the Burgas bombing, Yovchev said. “I am familiar with all the facts and the investigation conclusions up to this moment. My expert opinion is that the assessment and the statement that followed are correct. I support them.”
In June, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin appeared to backtrack from Bulgaria’s investigation into the Burgas bombing that implicated Hezbollah, saying there was only an “indication” that Hezbollah was behind the attack. But Vigenin went on to clarify his remarks, telling Bulgaria’s ‘Standart’ newspaper that the government in Sofia had “not reconsidered its stand on Hezbollah” from the initial investigation.
Meanwhile, European Foreign Ministers are set to discuss the issue of putting Hezbollah on the EU’s list of terrorist organizations at a meeting in Brussels on 22 July. There are still a number of countries that are reluctant to blacklist the Lebanese movement, including Austria. “Our position is that we say neither yes or no but we ask why,” said Alexander Schallenberg, a spokesman for Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger, told the ‘Wall Street Journal’ last week, adding: “We are still examining the information given by our EU partners.”
Opposition to a British proposal to blacklist Hezbollah is driven by worries that the move could undermine political stability in Lebanon because sanctions exclusively targeting the group’s military wing may prove difficult to implement without affecting its political bureau as well.
Artículos Relacionados: