396. Telegram From the Embassy in Bulgaria to the Department of State1
3175.
Sofia, July 28, 1987,
1300Z
SUBJECT
- More Bulgarian Tourists Traveling to the West.
- 1.
- (U) The Bulgarian Government appears to have relaxed restrictions on tourist travel to the West. Our visa statistics for 1986 and 1987 show that we have issued 41 percent more B–2 tourist visas to Bulgarians thus far this year than we did through the end of July 1986 (441, as compared to last year’s 312). The UK and West German Embassies here confirm that their tourist visa issuances to Bulgarians this year are also noticeably higher, although they have provided no statistics.
- 2.
- (C) A West German Embassy officer told us recently that the head of the Sofia passport office had confirmed to him in June that his office was issuing more passports for travel to the West than in the past. The Bulgarian did not provide any explanation for the change.
- 3.
- (C) Probably coincidentally, there has recently been a turnover at the head of the MFA Consular Department. Stoyan Radoslavov, who had held the position since 1983, has departed for an unknown destination (quite possibly retirement, given his age and evident lack of energy). The new consular head is Ambassador Petur Vulkanov, about whom the MFA has thus far provided no information. Our files indicate, however, that a Petur Kostov Vulkanov was appointed Ambassador to Afghanistan in 1982 and, while he is still listed in that position, he would probably be due to rotate this summer to another job. (We have no additional data on Vulkanov, other than that he served in the MFA Fifth Department—Asian countries—from 1980 until his appointment to Kabul.) Thus far we have no information indicating that the Radoslavov-Vulkanov transition is related to any policy changes on foreign travel, divided families, or other consular business.
- 4.
- (C) Comment. The reasons for the relaxation of restrictions on travel to the West presumably relate to Bulgaria’s attempts to warm relations with both Western Europe and the US. (As we have reported, the Bulgarians appear also to be attempting to resolve all but the most intractable of the divided families cases of the US and other Western countries, although lengthy bureaucratic delays in implementation continue sometimes to be a problem.) None of the officials with whom the Embassy is in contact, however, has explicitly referred to liberalized tourist travel for Bulgarians or identified it as an element of either the substance or the “climate” of our bilateral on broader East-West relations. Nonetheless, should an appropriate occasion arise, we believe it would be useful for our CSCE delegation in Vienna to make some positive comment on the larger number of Bulgarian tourists being allowed to travel to the US and other Western countries this year.
Rickert
- Source: Reagan Library, Rudolf Perina Files, Bulgaria—Substance (1). Confidential. Sent for information to Eastern European posts and Vienna.↩