Washington already covering everything from energy to trade. He has a hard stop here because hes going to meet with the number two at the state department. But we thought wed focus on the nato summit which just took place in warsaw. So let me just open by asking you, mr. Foreign minister, based on bugull garys priorities, wh were the most important outcomes in warsaw. Thank you very much for the warm welcome. Apologies for the fact that we were late. And yes, youre ax absolutely right. Mentioned that it takes quite a while in d. C. To move around. That could be figurative and literal. Right. Yeah, there was no intention behind it was not a euphemism. First, when it comes to the nato summit, it was a long expected event. Because what we expected from the summit and what happened was somehow to recapitulate the achievements after the wales summit and to build up on that. Everything that we have laid as goals and expectations from the wales summit was basically achieved, and from then on we needed to move on with several very important points, which tackled the geopolitical challenges which surround especially the eastern plank. From bulgarias perspective, what we had as a goal was first to be sure that the southeastern and the North Eastern and the southeastern dimensions of the eastern flank of nato are equally regarded as important. Very often we speak about baltic states, about poland and so on. But somehow the black sea region and the southeastern have been mentioned but not so well focused on. So our goal was basically to bring up this equality between the two that i mentioned. Of course we are pleased with the political consensus on the strengthening and development of nato. I have to say the spirit of unity was very highly emphasized on the summit. I think even this is a little bit of a provocation, but i think even brexit somehow contributed to it. I was very happy to see, to hear actually secretary albright mentioning this yesterday while we were having the different panels. She said basically absolute the same thing. Brexit somehow brought the sensation that, okay, this is a moment in which we need to show unity. The democratic transatlantic unity needs to be demonstrated in certain way. And we did. We all realized that history has returned in geopolitics. Fortunately or unfortunately. We with caulk a lot about that. But at a certain point we somehow took our security and our and the democratic the liberal democratic id say attractiveness, we took it for granted. And we thought that basically little by little democratic practices will spread around and we will have more and more countries joining the club of democracies. Turns out and we stopped making history basically. At a certain point history hit us back. And started happening to us instead of vice versa. And this sensation that we are right now shaped by the circumstances and we are not capable of building up a sound strategy in order to sap the circumstances, shape the world around us has been the sensation of the, not only the summit but already for the last year, year and a half. So nato tried to focus on the challenges and to somehow Start Building those or continue building those strategies in order to tackle the strategies which will allow us to stabilize the alliance. And then maybe of course bring the stability outside of our environment in general. We have now the right infrastructure in place. The decisions on the enhancement, forward presence are excellent news. And the wider elements of deterrence are falling into place. Those are one of some of the basic accomplishments of the summit. Were particularly pleased that with the commitment of nato to ensure the protection of all flanks of the alliance, given the depth and diversity of threats. For us the recognition and the commitment to counter new types of threats such as cyberattacks is of great importance. This is one of those moments we were really looking forward to because you see that, that even lately we encounter more and more problems in that regard. Bulgaria had that problem immediately after its last parliamentary elections. Cyberattacks on our basic on the websites of, lets say, fundamental institutions. President ial institutions. The president ial institution was attacked and also the central electoral committee. Which was basically responsible for counting the votes and informing the public of what was going on. The confirmation of open door policy is another important. And we were pleased to see them join the appliance. The open door policy cannot stop existing. We cannot deny the rights of free and sovereign countries to choose their alliances and to choose where they want to belong. And what type of, what type of confirmation or assurances for their security they will choose. So this choice remains open and we will continue motivating those countries who want to join the alliance to continue forward. This increases our space of security, increases our even the democratic environment. And exactly month nay gro, country very close to bulgaria joining nato was very good news, for us especially. Were looking forward to other neighbors of ours joining nato little by little. Security spending is on the rise and societies are increasingly on board with that. Now, i hear some messages in the president ial campaign here about who needs to spend what. But a lot of people are missing from that side of the spectrum, theyre missing that in wales we have actually pledged to increase our spending budget up to 2 in certain amount of time. And everyone is moving in that direction, everyone. Okay. Bulgaria in the last budget we have increased our defense spending and little by little well reach the 2 . Very often it is linked 2 of the gdp. Bulgaria is one of the countries whose gdp is on the rise. This puts special challenges but we need to do it. As i mentioned in the beginning, history has returned. We have a lot of challenges which require soft and hard security spending and investment. And we all, in the spirit of solidarity, we need to do that. We have also commenced a program of military and security modernization, crucially related to our air force capabilities and maritime presence. Itsragi encou that as the security environment has become more challenges, citizens are supporting the renewed financial commitments and wish to see tangible improvements in securi security structures, policies and outcomes. Of course i need to mention afghanistan and the reconfirmation of our commitment to continue working with the afghani authorities in order to bring up a tangible and a welldesigned working Security Forces there. Same is valid for iraq and especially special attention of course with space to the fight against isis. Now when it comes to isis, we need to mention the following. Its very, very interesting to see how the things went into in afghanistan and iraq, we went there, we put boots on the ground and we stayed for a while. And we are still there in afghanistan. The results are not entirely encouraging. But still, the commitment is there. And im absolutely convinced that at a certain point well reach the desired end. When it comes to libya, we helped tear down a dictator but we didnt put boots on the ground. We left everything to the local political infrastructure, local parties and so on. Again, not a very encouraging environment still. In syria we did neither until isis did not become a threat, we did nothing basically, in the sense we didnt deal with assad in military terms, we didnt put boots on the ground, and theres no intention to do that. And still the results are encouraging not encouraging at all. So what to do here, the whole thing, turns out that whatever you do, theres a problem. And i think the engagement of the countrys region needs to be much higher than what we have right now. And a lot of you actually every one of you, im sure, knows more or less whats going on, the proxy wars, the tensions between the Different Countries, the even the competition between different ideological currents in islam is bringing a lot of confusion in the region. So our task would be to help our friends and partners in the region to build up an antiisis coalition which will actually stabilize the region, but they need to defeat isis together with us. And mainly then, then as we can help. But in the meantime, if we engage more than what we have as an engagement right now, the problem is that isis is fed exactly by interventions like that. And we very often hear isis the isis ideology is not islam. Very true. But we need to see more counter action against isis then, in that case, in order for the islamic countries somehow to make this contrast between we are not that. We are going to defeat a phenomenon which is actually bringing a bad image to us. And to the Islamic Community in general. Now, a lot of the Islamic Community, lets say, representatives in Different Countries of ours, they take stands, they participate together with us in order to, in order to fight the radicalization phenomena. I have to say in bulgaria we work very well with our Muslim Community from the very beginning of the creation of isis. They have engaged, they have said the right things and sent the right messages across all the communities in the country. And until this moment i have to say we have quite a stable environment when it comes to observing the tendencies of radicalization. Theres very small there are very small attempts here and there in order to do that. And as you know, bulgaria has 10 of muslim population. This engagement is extremely important. But we need to countries in the region to do the same thing. And identify those, those philosophical or ideological currents which actually contribute to bringing the radical the radical thoughts and the radical action up to extremes and feeding isis with ideas which are basically incompatible with the modern world, or even with whatever world it is, their ideology is inhumane and completely and utterly unacceptable for anyone. And ill stop here on that. Im sure that you will have questions on that. The big news or part of the big news from this summit was also the declaration, the joint declaration between the European Union and nato. Work that has not been done for decades was done in a few months. Here we need to give credit to secretary general of nato and also too donald and Jean Claude Junker for pushing this forward and achieving this closeness and identifying exactly the areas where nato and the European Union can join forces and resources in order to tackle common challenges. One of them is the migration crisis, the migration pressure on the european borders. Operation sophia, the enhanced cooperation in the mediterranean and the gnc which is tackling basically the Human Trafficking networks and the criminal, criminal activities of related to Human Trafficking in that, in that area. That was in retrospect, but i guess, i guess a lot of questions will be coming from the floor so ill be happy to answer them. Thank you. You put a lot of meaty issues on the table and im tempted to ask a followup but im not going to. Ill weave my questions in as others are asking. This is on the record. Because youre so tweetable i want to underscore what the hashtag is, it is gmsttalk. All of your points are very important, well see how nato beeves up its presence there. Your second point, which as you called it a provocation that brexit, rather than showing a Transatlantic Community coming apart actually enhanced a sense of unity at the summit. Your point that we stopped making history and history has now hit back. I think is worth unpacking too. And the point that you didnt end on but you spent time talking about, this examples f in afghanistan, libya and syria, they go from complicated to negative examples. Theres a question for the alliance about how to protect stability to what is a very unstable region. Lots on the table. Let me turn it over to you and if not, im going to jump in because one of the questions i had was, the point about projecting the presence in the black sea region. And i am not someone who follows bulgarian politics very closely. But i did notice that your president led the delegation to the nato summit and was clear that bulgaria saw it in its interest for nato to enhance its presence in the black sea region. But at the same time the Prime Minister was talking about how important it was to demilitarize the black sea region. Can you help us unpack what seemed as though they were different views . Well, there was a bit of confusion around this. Part of it was media confusion, part of it was political not a very exact political message. But we tried to clarify opposition. And actually, we did. But sometimes its not that wide spread what is the exact position were going with to the nato summit. We have an approved decision of the council, ministers even for that. The Prime Minister at a certain point he clarified that he didnt mean demilitarization in general. What he tried to say at that moment is that piling up weapons in the black sea is not a very constructive approach in general. So we need a little bit of a wiser, wiser approach. But at the same time, we know very well whats on the other side. After the annexation of crimea, basically, almost the whole black sea fleet of ukraine was annexed as well. And from what we see, theres military buildup and we know that. So there needs to be certain type of balance. And nato knows that and we know that. So bulgarias position was very clear on one thing. We need enhanced forward presence of nato in the black sea, even with the limitations of the convention. But we need that enhanced presence. It needs to be under the flag of nato and under the command under the Maritime Command of nato. So that was basically our position. It is, right now and it will be during the meeting of the ministers of defense in october. This because what nato does is, without trying to provoke anyone to build defense capabilities and deterrence capabilities. And exactly that is what were looking at in the black sea. Of course together with our partners, what nato countries have black sea access, and at the same time we would, we would be we would like to see more common nato presence, not only the black sea countries to be involved in this, not regionalization of the black sea again. Because you know that there are several black sea formats. None of them are working. None of them. So now what we need in this case is nato presence. The nato flag in the black sea and the command needs to be marcom. I know we didnt reach a huge audience because it is a very, id say, not interesting position. It might be perceived as not, not scandalous. The other is interesting and brings something to the newspapers and to the news in general. And thats why it took so much attention. But this is actually the position with which we went to the nato summit and this is what we want now. This is what we will continue to bring forth and defend at the upcoming ministerial meeting at the ministers of defense in october. If we could have a mike over here. That was very clear. So thank you. Please introduce yourself. Im seth starter, assistant Homeland Security for borders and immigration and trade here in the government here, obama administration. I have a question. So on the theme of history biting back, i want to get your reflection of the developments in your neighbor and our nato partner turkey. Whats your thought on where thats going . First, of course, turkey is, was and will remain unimportant nato partner and an essential part of our defense infrastructure. Turkey is undergoing quite a difficult period. And we, from the very beginning of what was happening there the night of the attempted coup, the Bulgarian Government said basically one very important thing. We hope that there will not be a spiral of violence in turkey and no retaliation without regards to the rule of law and the constitution and so on. So thats a very important point. And we have, of course, a lot of questions around whats going on. And we, at the European Union level, we actually adopted conclusions, you probably know them. We have called for turkey to respect the human rights charter of the council of europe. 13, if im not mistaken. Im mistaken about the numbers but it doesnt matter. But turkey is part of the charter of human rights of the council of europe, the convention of human rights the council of europe. And there the Death Penalty is banned, its unacceptable. We called for that. We called for turkey not to reestablish that penalty or anything of that sort. And of course the people who need to be brought to responsibility and justice need to be assured a fair trial and the rule of law needs to prev l prevail. However, though, turkey remains our neighbor. Turkey is i will repeat this again essential part of our defense infrastructure, especially when it comes to the fight against isis and the stabilization of syria and iraq. And also a partner related to the management of the migration and the refugee crisis. The European Union and bulgaria in particular, we work very closely with the turkish authorities in order to, in order to achieve Sustainable Solutions about the migration crisis. The turkey agreement is of importance to us. And we will, we will continue to insist for that agreement to be implemented. We will continue to insist also, of course, for turkey to start implementing the readmission agreement between the European Union and turkey. We have signed the bilateral protocols but theres some theyve ratified the agreement but the council of ministers has not yet adopted any, any mechanism for implementation. That is the last bit. And were trying to talk to our turkish colleagues and friends in order to, in order for this to happen as soon as possible so that we can have i apologize so that we can have a structured management process around the migration and the refugee crisis. At the same time of course we work very well on our border issues when it comes to the communication between the border guard authorities. That is also an essential point that needs to be made. So in a nutshell, yes, we are worried. We are looking very closely at whats happening. We have a lot of questions. But at the same time, turkey is an important partner in nato and a neighbor with whom we are working on a lot of important and crisis issues which are identified as part of the main, main challenges of our history right n