November 4 (BTA) - BTA and the Romanian News Agency AGERPRES shall sign a cooperation agreement in the beginning of 2022, the directors general of the two agencies, Kiril Valchev and Claudia Victoria Nicolae, said Thursday in Sofia.

"I am visiting BTA for the second time. I was here for the News Agencies World Congress, organized in Bulgaria by the former director general. Relations between BTA and AGERPRES go far back, continuing during the tenure of all directors general with cooperation between the two agencies growing stronger with time," the AGERPRES Director General said.

She also said that as neighbors in the Balkans, it is very important that the two organizations collaborate and find any ways and opportunities to help each other as national news agencies.

"Next year we will mark 30 years of the signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness. This should be an additional point in support of our future cooperation. I am convinced that all projects will progress smoothly and will be highly successful," Claudia Victoria Nicolae pointed out.

In turn, BTA Director General Kiril Valchev said the two agencies had agreed on four things:

"For the first time, the Romanian news agency AGERPRES and BTA will sign a cooperation agreement. This we will happen in the beginning of 2022. The agreement will be specific: first, we shall provide full access to our services and, second, we shall be mutual editors of our news and shall find a way to exchange one news item - the most important one for the day - that the other party shall publish," he said.

Also, the two news agencies decided to mark together the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good neighbourliness in 1992, with each doing its best to assemble 30 AGERPRES and BTA photos about the same events over these 30 years, which will then be shown in exhibitions in Sofia and Bucharest.

The two agencies will also commemorate together 145 years since the beginning in 1877 of the war that was a War of Liberation for Bulgaria and a War of Independence for Romania. "And we will meet again at the very beginning of the new year," the BTA Director General said. RY/BR