Bulgaria Foreign Affairs Minister Rumiana Jeleva has met with Richard Lugar, the Vice Chair of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, during her trip to Washington.

Jeleva met Senator Lugar Tuesday and the meeting was said to have paid particular attention to the inclusion of Bulgaria in the program for visa-free travel to the United States. Jeleva pointed out that Bulgaria is not a major source of immigration to the US and that it is actively working to meet the criteria for inclusion in the program, including by issuing new biometric passports.

Lugar stated that he is committed to working both with his Republican colleagues in Congress and with the US administration to include Bulgaria in the program.

Jeleva and Lugar also discussed issues of energy security with a both regional and global dimension. Both sides agreed that energy issues are at the heart of security and that they need to work to diversify the sources and the delivery of energy resources, including the Nabucco natural gas pipeline with which Iraqi natural gas could be delivered to Europe.

Jeleva concluded by inviting Lugar to visit Bulgaria, an invitation which was accepted with ‘satisfaction’.

Article is provided by and used with permission from Novinite.com, Bulgaria's largest English-language news provider with real-time coverage of the most recent events and developments in Bulgaria and around the world.