(MENAFN) Bulgaria has expressed readiness to allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to use its airspace to attend a planned summit with US President Donald Trump in Hungary, the country’s foreign minister announced.

According to the Kremlin, Trump and Putin agreed in a recent phone call to meet in Budapest at an undisclosed date to discuss ways to advance peace efforts in the Ukraine conflict.

In an interview with national broadcaster BNR on Monday, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev said Sofia would not stand in the way of the meeting. “When efforts are made to achieve peace, and if the condition for that is to hold a meeting, it is most logical to organize such a meeting by all possible means,” he stated.

“How could there be a meeting if one side isn’t able to attend?” Georgiev added.

While Bulgaria does not share a direct border with Hungary, both countries neighbor Serbia, which maintains close relations with Moscow and has refused to enforce sanctions against Russia.

Hungary remains among the few EU states that continue to engage diplomatically with Russia. Earlier in June, Budapest announced its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which in 2023 issued a war crimes warrant for Putin — a move Russia has rejected as “legally void.”

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