Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov is to visit Israel on January 11 and 12 2010 at the invitation of his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, the Government media office in Sofia said.
 
Borissov will be accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Defence Minister Nikolai Mladenov, Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Traicho Traikov, and senior officials, advisers, MPs and clergy.
 
The visit opens with talks with Netanyahu, followed by a visit to the Yad Vashem memorial to victims of the Holocaust.
 
Borissov will meet foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman and the speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Reuven Rivlin, and then president Shimon Peres.
 
A meeting with the leader of the opposition Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, is also scheduled.
 
Borissov will meet members of the Bulgarian community in Israel in Tel Aviv.
 
The following day, Borissov will visit sacred sites the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Wailing Wall, and meet the head of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Patriarch Theophilos III.
 
In Ramallah, Borissov will meet Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad. 
 
Borissov’s visit is the latest in a series of high-level engagements between Bulgaria and Israel in recent years.
 
In 2008, the then-deputy minister of foreign affairs led a delegation to Sofia for talks on intensifying economic relations, and on joint initiatives in agriculture and medicine.
 
President Georgi Purvanov visited Israel in March 2008. During that visit, then-foreign minister Ivailo Kalfin and Livni, then Israel’s foreign minister, discussed co-operation between the two countries in the energy sector, agriculture, military matters and tourism.
 
In February 2007, the interior ministers of Bulgaria and Israel signed a bilateral agreement on combating illegal trafficking of drugs and against other serious crimes.
 
In June 2006, the then-president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, visited Bulgaria. Earlier the same year, Bulgaria and Israel signed a programme on co-operation in science, culture and education for 2006 to 2008, a follow-up to a similar 2000 – 2003 programme.