US: No Sanctions on Bulgaria over ICC Stand

The United States announced it will not impose sanctions on Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia which have not signed an agreement on shielding US nationals from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The step aims to back the countries' efforts en route to NATO accession and is also a gesture of recognition for their support in the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the beginning of July the United States cancelled military aid to Bulgaria and five other East European nations seeking to join NATO next year, which sided with the European Union in the row over the fledging International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. As an EU aspirant Bulgaria decided to stick to the common position of the union against bilateral pacts shielding US overseas personnel from war crimes prosecution. The country firmly believes that an immunity granting pact should not shield all US citizens but only those dispatched on missions and who have carried out certain activities in their official capacity, the Foreign Ministry said then.