Bulgaria President: 'National Effort' Needed for Bokova's UN Top Job Campaign

The election of a new UN Secretary General is "the toughest battle" Bulgaria is facing, President Rosen Plevneliev has said.

His words follow a New York meeting with UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, who was nominated by the Bulgarian government as the country's official candidate to take over from Ban Ki-moon as head of the global organization next year.

"We will work in a coherent way to fulfill this cause," the President's press office quotes him as saying.

Plevneliev paid a visit to New York on Friday to sign on behalf of Bulgaria the global climate agreement, COP21, reached in Paris among world leaders last year.

According to the press office, while having conversations with a number of counterparts or heads of government he was able to make sure of the positive evaluation of Bokova's work coming from "leaders from around the world".

Prior to Bokova's confirmation as the official Bulgarian candidacy, Plevneliev was pointed by some media reports as a supporter of EU Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva (who unofficially was also seeking a government nomination at the time) as the country's UN Secretary General candidate.