Middle East tops Balkan talks agenda
The leaders of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania met in Bucharest yesterday for talks aimed at increasing interstate cooperation. But the Middle East conflict jumped to the top of the agenda and they issued an appeal for greater international involvement in the crisis. «No efforts should be spared to stop the violence and prevent a further escalation of tension,» Prime Minister Costas Simitis, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov and President Ion Iliescu of Romania said in a statement. It was issued after the three met at the lakeside villa of the late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in Snagov, some 40 kilometers north of Bucharest. Shortly before he left Romania, Simitis received a telephone call from Libyan leader Muammar Khadhafi, Greek officials said. Their talks focused on the Middle East and the EU-Mediterranean countries’ meeting to be held in Seville, Spain, on Monday. The statement called on the international community to halt the escalation of the conflict and help implement UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire, Israeli troop withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestinian state to coexist with Israel. Other topics on the agenda were Romania and Bulgaria’s bids to join NATO and the European Union. Iliescu and Parvanov were pleased by Simitis’s promise that Greece would do all in its power as EU president in the first half of 2003 to help the two countries’ accession procedures with the union. «Their entry into the EU will constitute a stronger link and… a framework for the common principles and values that we have in the EU to apply in this region as well,» Simitis said. Greece, a NATO member, also supports Bulgarian and Romanian membership of the alliance. «NATO’s enlargement toward southeast Europe would strengthen the alliance’s military capabilities and provide strategic depth to… counter terrorism and non-military threats,» the leaders’ statement said. Iliescu’s spokeswoman, Corina Cretu, said discussions also focused on «unconventional risks such as trafficking in human beings and drugs,» which has flourished in the region since communism ended in 1989 and the wars in neighboring Yugoslavia broke out in the 1990s. (Kathimerini, AP)
