BERLIN – Bulgaria’s interior minister told European Union leaders last week that
Hezbollah had played a role in the July suicide bombing of an Israeli tour bus,
according to a report Tuesday in pan-Arab paper Al-Hayat.
The bombing in
the Bulgarian seaside resort of Burgas resulted in the deaths of five Israelis
and a Bulgarian bus driver.
The London-based paper cited an unnamed
“European source” who stated that Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov
had briefed fellow European interior ministers at a confidential Thursday
meeting.
According to the report, the European source said Tsvetanov had
laid out evidence implicating Hezbollah in the terror attack.
However,
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov, who visited Israel last week,
denied that his country’s authorities had concluded their
investigation.
Speaking on Monday on Bulgaria’s national channel BNT, he
denied a Channel 2 report that his country had presented evidence to Israel
showing a link between Hezbollah and the Burgas killings.
“The reactions
in the media were probably because of the political tension in Israel now before
their elections, and also because everybody in Bulgaria, Europe and Israel
impatiently expect the results from the investigation of the Burgas attack,” he
said.
Asked if Hezbollah had been behind the Burgas suicide bombing,
Mladenov said, “No, I have not made any statements for the media, neither before
nor during my trip to Israel. When the Bulgarian investigators, who are working
very hard on the case, complete their work, the truth will have to be announced
no matter what it is.”
One way or another, he added, “the results will be
announced in Bulgaria first. It’s important that the results are announced here,
not abroad in Brussels, the US or Israel.”
According to Al-Hayat’s
European source, Germany and France are against including Hezbollah in the EU
terror list because outlawing the Lebanese organization would create a more
volatile Lebanon.
The number of Hezbollah members in Germany has grown
from 900 in 2010 to 950 in 2012. With the exception of The Netherlands, the
Lebanese group is a legal organization within the EU, and raises funds in
Europe.
Al-Hayat reported that the Bulgarian authorities were slated to
hold a press conference next week to discuss the Burgas investigation. According
to the Sofia News Agency Novinite.com, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said
the terror attack “will be in the focus of the upcoming sitting of Bulgaria’s
Consultative Council on National Security on February
5.”
English-language Lebanese paper The Daily Star reported on its
website Tuesday that “the Lebanese resistance group has not denied or confirmed
any role in the bombing.”