Bulgarian Diplomat: Sofia Waiting for Lebanese Cooperation on Burgas Probe

The Bulgarian Charge d'Affaires in Lebanon, Plamen Tzolov, said his government was still waiting for the cooperation of the Lebanese authorities on the investigation into the bus bombing on Israeli tourists last year.

In remarks to As Safir daily published Thursday, Tzolov said: “The Bulgarian government is still waiting for the response of the Lebanese government and mainly the justice ministry on a request made by Bulgaria to cooperate on this security file.”

He hoped that Sofia will be able to announce who stood behind the July 18 bus attack in the Black Sea resort of Burgas that left 5 Israelis dead.

The blast also killed the Bulgarian driver and the suspected bomber, a tall and lanky pale-skinned man wearing a baseball cap and dressed like a tourist.

A Bulgarian investigation blamed Hizbullah for the bombing. The official report said investigators had "well-grounded reasons to suggest" that two of the suspects belonged to the Lebanese party.

The report said they had been living in Lebanon for years, one with a Canadian passport and the other with an Australian one.

Bulgaria's caretaker prime minister Marin Raykov said last month that Sofia will provide more evidence that Hizbullah planned the deadly attack on the Israeli tourists to convince European Union countries to put the party on its terror list.

Raykov said that some EU countries were ‘‘not sufficiently convinced’’ by Bulgaria’s evidence of Hizbullah's involvement.

Adding Hizbullah to the EU list of terrorist organizations would require a unanimous decision by the foreign ministers of the 27 EU countries.

Tzolov told As Safir however that Bulgaria does not have the intention to ask the EU for listing Hizbullah.

“The Bulgarian government is waiting for the end of the investigations and the EU in its turn is asking for more definitive evidence,” he said.