OREANDA-NEWS. On November 05, 2008 President of Bulgaria Georgi Parvanov started his state visit to Uzbekistan, reported the Official website www.investuzbekistan.uz.

Relations with Bulgaria occupy a special place in the foreign policy of Uzbekistan. The two countries are reliable partners successfully cooperating on the international arena.

Uzbekistan and Bulgaria have common views on many regional and international problems. The presidents of the two states are united in the issues of strengthening security and stability.

During the state visit of the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov to Bulgaria in 2003, Georgi Parvanov said his country was a small door to the large European market for Uzbekistan. Islam Karimov said Uzbekistan was ready to become a door to Central Asia for Bulgaria.

In this sense, the state visit of Georgi Parvanov to Uzbekistan can be considered a logical continuation of the high-level talks and another practical step on the way to raising the bilateral relations to a higher level.

On 6 November, presidents of Uzbekistan and Bulgaria held face-to-face talks. They discussed the current state and perspectives of bilateral relations, as well as touched upon regional and international problems representing mutual interest.

The two leaders focused their attention on the situation in Afghanistan. Islam Karimov said Uzbekistan’s position was to disarm the population of that country and direct it to the peaceful life, solve social and economic problems and implement gradual reforms in order to establish stability. The contact group 6+2, which successfully operated with the help of the UN in 1997-2001, has to be transformed into 6+3 with attraction of NATO to the negotiation process, Islam Karimov said.

At the negotiations of the official delegations of Uzbekistan and Bulgaria, issues of development of trade-economic, scientific-technical and humanitarian cooperation were considered. The sides agreed that the countries had enough potential to significantly expand the scale of economic cooperation.

Islam Karimov proposed organization of national exhibitions and economic forums in both countries, since nothing brings businessmen closer than direct contacts. The President of Uzbekistan suggested organizing the national exhibition of Bulgaria in Tashkent, and Georgi Parvanov supported this initiative.

During the talks, a particular focus was made on the cooperation in energy and tourism sectors. Among them were exploration of new deposits, improvement of tourism infrastructure, development hotel business and preparation of the staff for the tourism industry. The sides also considered issues of boosting direct ties between the regions, cities and industrial subjects of the two countries.

After the negotiations, the presidents signed a Joint communique. Also signed were intergovernmental agreements on cooperation in IT and telecommunications and protection of intellectual property rights. The commerce and industry chambers of the two states signer a cooperation agreement, too.

On the same day, President of Bulgaria held talks with the speaker of the Legislative Chamber of Uzbekistan Dilorom Tashmuhamedova, which focused on development of cooperation between the parliaments.

Georgi Parvanov, accompanied by Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, visited the Independence Square and laid flowers to the Monument of independence and humanism.

The Bulgarian leader also visited the State museum of Temurids history.