The Vice President's Remarks at a Meeting with Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov at the Vilnius Confernece 2006 in Vilnius, Lithuania

Reval Hotel Lietuva
Vilnius, Lithuania

11:37 A.M. (Local)

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I'm delighted this morning to have the opportunity to spend a little time with President Purvanov of Bulgaria. Of course, he supported their becoming members of NATO, and of course, the EU -- very important country in that part of the world and has been very helpful in working with the United States in the global war on terror. I'm delighted this morning to have the opportunity to spend a little time with the President.

PRESIDENT PURVANOV: I would like to join the Vice President, Mr. Cheney, in saying how pleased I am to be with him this morning. Indeed, this is one of the many meetings in a series of very active dialogue between the institutions of the United States and Bulgaria in recent years. We do appreciate and do value the support we have enjoyed from the United States in achieving a number of our strategic goals, including our joining NATO and now our forthcoming accession to the European Union. In recent years, Bulgaria has proved itself as a stable, dependable, predictable partner. And I hope that meetings like this one will give a fresh impetus, a further impetus to the economic relationship between our countries, for which there is a much greater potential.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Thank you.

END 11:40 A.M. (Local)