March 1 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's parliament has approved the proposal of prime minister Kiril Petkov to replace defence minister Stefan Yanev by Dragomir Zakov, ambassador and permanent representative of Bulgaria to NATO, parliament speaker Nikola Minchev said on Tuesday.
The proposal was supported by 184 members of the 240-seat parliament, with no votes against and 33 abstentions, Minchev said at the sitting, as seen in a live stream on the parliament's website.
Zakov took the oath of office promptly after the vote.
The prime minister changed earlier on Tuesday his original proposal for a new defence minister to replace Yanev. Petkov said on Monday that he will propose to parliament to approve the nomination of Todor Tagarev, who was defence minister in a 2013 caretaker government and member of the NATO Research and Technology Board. Petkov did not explain the reason for the change in the nomination of new defence minister.
On Monday, Petkov said he will demand Yanev to resign for describing the Russian assault on Ukraine as a ''military operation" rather than a "war".