Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin says that his country has a constructive role to play in the search for pragmatic solutions in the Western Balkans.

Addressing journalists at a seminar in the southern town of Sandanski on Bulgaria's foreign policy in 2008, Kalfin noted that this year had seen Croatia and Albania invited to join Nato, although "regrettably" Macedonia had not been invited.

Greece blocked an invitation being issued to Macedonia at this year's Nato summit in Bucharest because of the long-running dispute between Athens and Skopje over the use of the name "Macedonia".

Kalfin again used the word "regrettable" in noting that the two countries had been unable to achieve a resolution of the dispute and said that it was Bulgaria's hope that the impasse would be overcome.

He emphasised that this year Bulgaria had been closely involved in European policy matters, including regarding Kosovo, which in February 2008 unilaterally declared independence from Serbia.

After the disagreement between Serbia and Kosovo at the initial stages of the plan for the deployment of the European Union's rule of law mission EULEX, this deployment had taken place, which was a success of European policy, Kalfin said.

He noted that it had at an international conference in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Pomorie that Kosovo and Serb leaders had attended the same event, and in this context said that Bulgaria had a constructive role to play in the Western Balkans.

Kalfin said that for Bulgarian foreign policy, 2008 had a different character to that of 2007, which had seen successes such as the country's accession to the EU and the release from imprisonment in Libya of a group of nurses found guilty by Libyan courts of having deliberately infected hundreds of children with HIV.

Pointing out Bulgaria's engagements with Russia, including this year's visit to Sofia by Vladimir Putin, at the time Russia's president, as well as projects such as the Bourgas-Alexandropoulis pipeline, the Nabucco pipeline project and the South Stream project, Kalfin said that Bulgaria had the potential to become an important energy centre.

On issues elsewhere in the world, Kalfin praised the role that Bulgaria had played in Iraq, saying that progress had been made in that country and that its institutions were now on their feet.

On Afghanistan, he regretted that there had not been improvement to a greater degree, because the situation in the country had to do with the war against terrorism, against Al-Qaeda, against fundamentalist Islam and against illegal drugs.

Bulgaria, Kalfin said, had been very active in EU engagements in the situation in Georgia after the conflict in south Ossetia in August 2008. Bulgaria had been involved in the EU delegation to Georgia and its diplomats had engaged through other international institutions. The role that the EU had played in seeking to deal with the conflict in Georgia showed its potential for taking the lead on such issues, Kalfin said.

On the recently-signed international treaty against cluster bombs, of which in early December Bulgaria became one of the signatories, Kalfin said that other countries close by, including Greece, Serbia, Romania and Turkey, had not signed the treaty and Bulgaria hoped to encourage them to do so. He said that many of the victims of cluster bombs were innocent bystanders who were killed or injured long after the bombs were deployed. "These are bombs that kill children," Kalfin said.