A number of major thoroughfares in central Sofia will be shut down for traffic or will have restrictions imposed on July 9 because of the visit by US state secretary Condoleezza Rice, Sofia city hall said on July 8.

Between 8am and 5pm, cars will be banned from entering Brussels boulevard; Tsar Osvoboditel boulevard between the intersection with Vassil Levski boulevard and Independence square; Knyaz Dondukov boulevard between Rakovski street and Independence square; Atanas Bourov square; Lege street between Atanas Bourov square and the intersection with Pozitano street; and Suborna street between Sveta Nedelya square and the intersection with Knyaz Alexander I street. Parking on any of those street stretches is also banned.

The only exception will be made for trams that pass through any of the areas.

In the same time interval, parking will be banned on Tsarigradsko Chaussee, Tsar Osvoboditel, Yavorov, Nikola Vapsarov, Evlogi Georgiev, Knyaz Dondukov, Sitnyakovo, Shipchenski Prohod and Cherni Vruh boulevards, as well as Kozyak, Bezimenna and Oborishte streets.

Between 8am and 5pm, traffic on the listed thoroughfares would be temporarily suspended to make way for the procession, at unspecified times.

Rice is on a one-day working visit to Bulgaria, her second trip to the country on her own, rather than accompanying president George W Bush. She is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and is also expected to receive her Stara Planina order, which she was awarded last year in recognition of her efforts to free Bulgarian medics held in Libya.