SOFIA, Sept 3 (AFP) - Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov called on Friday for clear rules that would enable all members of US-led multinational force in Iraq to contribute to the decision-making process.
"We are not in Iraq to get a pat on the back. Some forms of encouragement are simply irritating," he told the Sofia institute of social and political analysis.
"Building such coalitions depends on greater trust, which can only rest upon the declaration of permanently shared values," he said.
"It requires clear rules and working mechanisms to be laid down" for all to follow, he added.
A former member of Bulgaria's communist party, Parvanov also criticised the country's centre-right Foreign Minister Solomon Passy for his "exaggerated and precipitate" support for the US invasion of Iraq.
He complained that Bulgaria's backing for the US-led intervention had given the country a "hawkish image".
The US military in late July thanked Bulgaria on Friday for its "sacrifices" in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Bulgarian government has 470 soldiers stationed in Iraq as part of the international force there, and said on July 14 it would maintain its forces Iraq despite continued instability in the country.
Pressure has been mounting on Sofia to pull out of Iraq in recent months after two Bulgarian truck drivers were taken hostage and beheaded, and a series of suicide bombings left five Bulgarian soldiers dead.
Bulgaria, which joined NATO in March, also has 66 men in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led security assistance force there.
Parvanov said he favoured "a quick but not hasty" retreat from Iraq and called on the coalition to come up with a timetable on accomplishing its objectives in the country.
He said that while he understood "the sceptical and negative" attitude of some European countries at the start of the war, unity was now needed.
"If the United States and its coalition partners fail in Iraq that would have grave consequences for the Old Continent," he said.
Parvanov added that Arab troops needed to be part of the stabilization process in Iraq and said that the Middle East conflict also had to be dealt with in order for peace to take hold in the region.