Bulgarian Defense Minister Sacked over Ukraine Rhetoric

Bulgaria's Defense Minister Stefan Yanev and Spain's Defence Minister Margarita Robles inspect the joint air police activities carried by Bulgarian and Spanish pilots and jets at Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria, February 21, 2022. (Reuters)
Bulgaria's Defense Minister Stefan Yanev and Spain's Defence Minister Margarita Robles inspect the joint air police activities carried by Bulgarian and Spanish pilots and jets at Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria, February 21, 2022. (Reuters)
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Bulgarian Defense Minister Sacked over Ukraine Rhetoric

Bulgaria's Defense Minister Stefan Yanev and Spain's Defence Minister Margarita Robles inspect the joint air police activities carried by Bulgarian and Spanish pilots and jets at Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria, February 21, 2022. (Reuters)
Bulgaria's Defense Minister Stefan Yanev and Spain's Defence Minister Margarita Robles inspect the joint air police activities carried by Bulgarian and Spanish pilots and jets at Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria, February 21, 2022. (Reuters)

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov on Monday fired Defense Minister Stefan Yanev for his reluctance to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a war, reiterating that Sofia would speak in one voice with the European Union.

Petkov said his centrist coalition government would ask parliament on Tuesday to approve Yanev's dismissal and appoint Todor Tagarev, who was a caretaker defense minister in 2013, to the post.

"My defense minister cannot use the word operation instead of the word war. You cannot call it an operation when thousands of soldiers from the one and the other side are already killed," Petkov said in a televised statement.

"The Bulgarian interest is not in bending our heads down...When we see something we do not agree with, something so obvious, we cannot keep quiet," Petkov said.

Bulgaria is a member of the EU and NATO but many in the Balkan country - which was the closest Communist satellite of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era - feel a strong cultural and historical affinity with Russia.

Some fear that taking a very strong stance against the Russian invasion could hurt Bulgaria, which is reliant on Russian energy supplies and tourist inflows to its Black Sea summer resorts.

President Rumen Radev said the change of defense ministers in the midst of a military crisis not far away was risky and the ruling coalition would be responsible.

Bulgaria has pledged to bolster NATO's eastern flank and lead a battle group in cooperation with NATO, but comprised mainly of Bulgarian troops. Analysts say Yanev's replacement may spur the deployment of more troops of NATO allies in Bulgaria.

"Bulgaria will not transform into an anti-Russian hawk in NATO, but will follow the tone set by Petkov for a clearer voicing of the Bulgarian position in NATO against the aggression in Ukraine," political commentator Ivo Indzhov said.

In a Facebook post late on Sunday Yanev wrote that he was the subject of a targeted attack aimed at replacing him with someone who would be more open to taking decisions that serve foreign interests, which could put Bulgaria's security at risk.

Petkov slammed Yanev's statement saying neither of his ministers had the right to "their own foreign policy, especially on Facebook".

Petkov said Bulgaria was not forced to take any decisions by its Western allies but stressed that the biggest guarantee for the country's security lay in standing united with its EU peers.

Separately, the foreign ministry said on Monday Bulgaria had evacuated the staff of its consular mission in the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odessa.



All 3 Iranian Consulates in Germany Ordered Shut

A photo taken on October 29, 2024 shows an exterior view of the Iranian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)
A photo taken on October 29, 2024 shows an exterior view of the Iranian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)
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All 3 Iranian Consulates in Germany Ordered Shut

A photo taken on October 29, 2024 shows an exterior view of the Iranian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)
A photo taken on October 29, 2024 shows an exterior view of the Iranian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)

Germany ordered the closure of all three Iranian Consulates in the country on Thursday in response to the execution of Iranian German prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd, who lived in the United States and was kidnapped in 2020 by Iranian security forces.

Sharmahd, 69, was put to death in Iran on Monday on terrorism charges, the Iranian judiciary said. That followed a 2023 trial that Germany, the US and international rights groups dismissed as a sham.

The decision to close the Iranian Consulates in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, announced by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, leaves Iran with only its embassy in Berlin, The Associated Press reported.

The German Foreign Ministry had already summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires on Tuesday to protest against Sharmahd’s execution. German Ambassador Markus Potzel also protested to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, before being recalled to Berlin for consultations.

Sharmahd was one of several Iranian dissidents abroad in recent years either tricked or kidnapped back to Iran as Tehran began lashing out after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers including Germany.

Iran accused Sharmahd, who lived in Glendora, California, of planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people — including five women and a child — and wounded over 200 others, as well as plotting other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing.

Iran also accused Sharmahd of “disclosing classified information” on missile sites of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard during a television program in 2017.

His family disputed the allegations and had worked for years to see him freed.

Iran pushed back against Germany’s protests. Araghchi wrote Tuesday on social network X that “a German passport does not provide impunity to anyone, let alone a terrorist criminal.”

He accused Baerbock of “gaslighting” and wrote that “your government is accomplice in the ongoing Israeli genocide.” Germany is a staunch ally of Israel and has sharply criticized Iranian attacks on Israel as tensions spiral over the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

The closure of consulates, a diplomatic tool Germany seldom uses, signals a major downgrade to diplomatic relations Baerbock said were “already at more than a low point.” Last year, Berlin told Russia to close four of the five consulates it then had in Germany after Moscow set a limit for the number of staff at the German Embassy and related bodies in Russia.

Iran's government “knows above all the language of blackmail, threat and violence,” Baerbock said Thursday. “The latest comments by the Iranian foreign minister, in which he puts the cold-blooded murder of Jamshid Sharmahd in the context of German support for Israel, also speak for themselves.”
“We repeatedly made unmistakably clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen would have serious consequences,” said Baerbock, adding that the cases of Germans held in Iran were a “central part” of a meeting she held with Araghchi in New York a month ago.
She said Berlin will continue with “tireless work” to get an unspecified number of other Germans released.