Burgas victims
Burgas victimsIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released a statement Tuesday after Bulgaria officially blamed Hizbullah for a terrorist bombing in the country that killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian last year.

Netanyahu called on the international community to recognize Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

The Bulgarian government said Tuesday that two people with Canadian and Australian passports linked to Hizbullah were behind the July bus bombing.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Canada “takes the reported involvement of a dual national living in Lebanon very seriously and is working with Bulgarian authorities.”

Both Canada and the United States urged the European Union to take a harsher approach to Hizbullah. Shortly after the Burgas bombing, the EU decided not to list Hizbullah as a terrorist group.

“We urge the European Union and all partners who have not already done so to list Hizbullah as a terrorist entity and prosecute terrorist acts committed by this inhuman organization to the fullest possible extent,” Baird said, according to AFP.

United States counter-terror advisor John Brennan said the attack exposed Hizbullah as “a terrorist group that is willing to recklessly attack innocent men, women and children, and that poses a real and growing threat not only to Europe, but to the rest of the world.”

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton appeared to agree, saying that there is “a need for reflection over the outcome of the investigation.”

“The implications of the investigation need to be assessed seriously as they relate to a terrorist attack on EU soil, which resulted in the killing and injury of innocent civilians,” she said.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Tuesday that his country is willing to cooperate in an investigation. “Lebanon trusts that the Bulgarian authorities will undertake a serious evaluation of the results of the investigation,” he said.