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Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev and the Director of the Kyrgyz National News Agency Kabar, Mederbek Shermetaliev, signed a cooperation agreement here on Monday during the Second Global Media Forum, held in Shusha, Azerbaijan, in which the two directors participated as guests of Azerbaijan's State News Agency AZERTAC, Azernews reports, citing BTA.

"The regular exchange of news between the national news agencies of Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan will allow for better knowledge between Bulgarians and the Kyrgyz, who are among the largest number of foreign workers in Bulgaria, mostly seasonal in hotels and restaurants, agriculture, construction, trade," Valchev said after the signing.

According to Employment Agency data, provided to BTA, in the last five years, the Agency has registered short-term employment of 5,284 Kyrgyz citizens, who hold the second largest number of permits granted after Turkish citizens.

In the first half of 2024, the Agency granted short-term employment permits to 3,694 Kyrgyz nationals, who ranked third in the number of permits granted after Turkish and Uzbek nationals. The persons are mainly employed as seasonal workers and workers in the manufacturing industry. The Ministry of Interior's Migration Directorate will be responsible for providing information on third-country nationals' authorised access to the labour market after the entry into force of amendments to the Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria Act and the Labour Migration and Labour Mobility Act.

According to BTA's Director General, more information about Bulgaria in Kyrgyzstan will be useful both for the Kyrgyz who come to work in the country and for the students who want to study higher education in Bulgarian universities. He recalled that a cooperation agreement has been signed between Kyrgyzstan's Ala-Too International University and Bulgaria's Angel Kanchev University of Ruse under the Erasmus+ program for mobility with countries outside the European Union.

"More information about Kyrgyzstan in Bulgaria will be useful for Bulgarian employers and educators to get a better understanding of the contemporary context in the country and the culture of the people from where their employees and students come," Valchev said.

The new agreement allows each side to receive the full set of information feeds in English from the other side, and both sides have the right to use this information in their information services.

In addition, each of the two agencies will provide the other with a daily briefing on a significant news story from its country with English-language text and a photo, which the other agency will post on its distribution channels for free reading by all visitors of the respective web sites, provided the source is explicitly mentioned.

The agreement also provides for the possibility of exchanges of experience and professional visits by journalists and other media professionals from both news agencies.

The agreement will enter into force on the date of its signature and will be automatically renewed annually.

Valchev invited 38-year-old lawyer and former TV presenter Mederbek Shermetaliev, who has been appointed by President Sadyr Japarov as Kabar director in April 2022, to visit Bulgaria. He gratefully accepted the opportunity to learn about BTA's work. BTA's former Director General Maxim Minchev visited Kyrgyzstan in 2004 as part of then Bulgarian foreign minister Solomon Passy's visit to that country in his capacity as chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Kiril Valchev also participated in the group of journalists.

This is the first agreement between BTA and Kabar as talks between Valchev and Shermetaliyev on signing it started a year ago during the first edition of the Global Media Forum in Shusha, Azerbaijan.

Shermetaliyev told Valchev that Kabar employs about 100 staff. The agency has correspondents in all seven regions of Kyrgyzstan, and abroad in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan, and plans to send correspondents to China and Korea.

According to information from the BTA's Reference Department, Kyrgyzstan's national news agency was established on January 28, 1937, as the Kyrgyz Telegraph Agency (KirTAG), renamed the Kyrgyz State News Agency (KyrgyzKabar) in 1992, and the Kyrgyz National Agency for Telecommunications and Information Administration Kabar in 1995.

Since 22 December 2001, it has borne its current name. The Agency is headquartered in Bishkek. Its website has been operational since 1998 in Kyrgyz, Russian, and English. Since 2008, it has also been published in Turkish and since 2017 in Arabic and Chinese. In 2002, the agency set up a television studio where daily video news are produced in four languages for the agency's website and for television companies. The studio also produces a weekly review and analysis TV show, and since 2017 a weekly show about the roots of Kyrgyz tribes, which is broadcast on regional TV channels.

Kyrgyzstan is a country in Central Asia with a territory of 199,951 square kilometers and a population of 6,172,101, of which 1,105,000 live in the capital Bishkek. Almost 30% of the population is under 14 years of age (compared to 13 per cent in Bulgaria) and the average age of the population is 28 years (in Bulgaria it is over 45 years). The country was the first member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to be accepted as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 21 December 1998.

Bulgaria recognised Kyrgyzstan's independence on 15 January 1992 and diplomatic relations were established on 20 May of that year, but to date the two countries have not opened embassies. Bilateral relations are based on the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation between Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan of 13 November 1994.

The agreement between BTA and Kabar was signed during the second edition of the Global Media Forum in Shusha, Azerbaijan, which was attended by more than 150 foreign guests from about 50 countries, including news agencies from some 30 countries, three international organizations, and 82 media institutions. The Forum, themed "Unmasking False Narratives: Confronting Disinformation", included four-panel sessions on assessing the impact and reach of disinformation; policies and initiatives to build a more resilient society against disinformation; the impact of artificial intelligence on reality, media, and disinformation and promoting media literacy; climate movements and the media.

The forum began on Saturday with a three-hour press conference by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, after which Valchev spoke briefly with him.

BTA's Director General has been invited to visit the headquarters in Baku of the Azeri news agency AZERTAC and to meet its board chairman Vugar Aliyev on Tuesday.

After the National Assembly made access to BTA's news open in 2021, Bulgaria's national news agency arranged new contracts with the global agencies it buys information from to allow all Bulgarian media to republish their news translated into Bulgarian free of charge.

And after the contract was signed on Monday, Bulgarian media can now use news free of charge from 43 national agencies from four continents (Europe, Asia, America, and Africa) with which BTA has signed similar cooperation agreements, including with the national news agencies of all of Bulgaria's neighboring countries and with 22 European agencies that are members of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA). BTA has such agreements with the national news agencies of Austria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vietnam, Ghana, Greece, Israel, India, Iran, Spain, Italy, Yemen, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus, Kosovo, Côte d'Ivoire, Latvia, Liberia, Lebanon, Moldova, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Poland, the Republic of North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovakia, Serbia, Turkiye, Ukraine, the Philippines, Croatia and Montenegro.

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