ANKARA
Sofia will never recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, the Bulgarian president said Tuesday during his first visit in Ukraine in 12 years.
Rosen Plevneliev (R) met with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko (L) in Kiev Tuesday.
“Crimea is Ukraine and Ukraine is Europe,” Plevneliev said during the joint press conference.
The Crimean peninsula joined the Russian Federation in March 2014 following a heavily contested referendum.
Plevneliev also called for the implementation of the Minsk cease-fire agreement as the only way to resolve the problems in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian army continue to clash in the eastern Donbas region despite a cease-fire agreement signed in the Belarusian capital Minsk in February. More than 6,000 people have been killed in Donbas region since April 2014, according to the UN.
Plevneliev added that Bulgaria supported the EU sanctions against Russia as well as Ukraine’s EU membership bid.
“We believe that every nation, irrespective of its size or wealth, has a right to determine its fate independently. Nobody has a right to intervene, violate and cross borders, invade and annex territories of other countries,” Rosen Plevneliev noted.
He added that Ukraine was a key country for the EU and its energy security.
Ukrainian President Poroshenko said he believed that Ukraine's Naftogaz and Russia's Gazprom would pursue cooperation in carrying Russian gas to Europe beyond 2019.
He added that every single alternative project that would bypass Ukraine would make gas more expensive for European countries.
