President Iliana Yotova stood at the podium of the UN General Assembly and called for the Black Sea to stop being a zone of risk. The region should become a place of security, she said. Roads, energy links, trade and digital corridors there should stay open. People of different cultures and religions should meet in peace, not war.
The head of state is leading Bulgaria's delegation at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. In her speech during the general political debate, she put the focus on security in the Black Sea region.
Russia launched a full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022 — and Yotova said that war no longer stays within the territorial waters of the countries fighting it. "The war in Ukraine has spilled out of the territorial waters of the countries in the conflict, and that affects Bulgaria directly, here and now. The problem in the Black Sea has grown from a regional one into a global one," the president said.
She warned that the fallout from the war, together with the conflict in Iran and the drying up of the Danube, risks triggering a food crisis. Yotova also pointed to the Black Sea's marine ecosystems, which she said are under even greater threat because of Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Bulgaria is working on an initiative it will ask countries in the region and other interested states to back, aimed at keeping shipping in the Black Sea free and safe. "We are convinced this issue deserves the attention of the United Nations," the president said.
Speaking from the podium of the world body, Yotova paid tribute to Captain Marin Marinov, who was killed in the Gaza Strip while on a humanitarian mission.