Bulgaria and Syria in the Assad Era

The monograph explores the development of the political positions of Bulgaria and Syria on the leading Middle East issues during the time of Hafiz and Bashar Assad and the development of the Bulgarian-Syrian political and economic relations. In these years, Syria has become a key player in the Middle East, but the reform initiatives and the forceful maintenance of the Baathist regime have produced mixed assessments and reactions among Syrian society. At the same time, the analysis is based on the understanding of the mutual influence between the global processes and the competition between the leading international factors on the one hand and the foreign policy ambitions of the regional powers on the other hand in the formation of the Middle East dynamics and the development of the Bulgarian and Syrian Middle East policy in the long period from the 70s to the beginning of the 21st century.

Traced according to their occurrence in chronological order, the problems discussed in the study are:

   - the Palestinian question;

  - the development of the Syrian-Israeli opposition to its projections at a global level and the resulting leading principles of unanimity and contradictions between Bulgaria and Syria;

    - the Syrian leadership of Lebanon's domestic political development and foreign policy;

   - the crisis processes in the Middle East in the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, and the Syrian civil war, in which Bulgaria and Syria formulated different assessments and approaches in line with their domestic and foreign policy priorities;