Bulgaria Top Diplomat: No Official Talk on US Defense Shield

Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister, Nikolay Mladenov, says all discussions regarding the US defense shield are held within NATO and there is no bilateral talk between Bulgaria and the US. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister, Nikolay Mladenov, rejected reports that Bulgaria is holding official talks about adopting elements of the planned US missile defense shield.

“At this stage we had not entered any talk about what exactly is going to be deployed on Bulgarian territory. It is too early for such discussions since it is not even clear what exactly the system would look like,” Mladenov said on Wednesday.

According to the Minister, the Russian reaction was wrongly interpreted in Bulgaria because there is a dialogue between the Russian Federation and NATO for common defense measures against terrorism and other threats.

Meanwhile Mladenov’s Deputy – Marin Raykov is cited by the Bulgarian daily Trud (Labor) as saying the defense shield is not at all targeting Russia while all decisions will be made after consultations with Bulgaria’s partners and with the support of the public.

Bulgaria's former Prime Minister and leader of the Socialist Party (BSP), Sergey Stanishev, announced earlier that on the insistence of the opposition left-wing, the Parliamentary Defense Committee will hold Wednesday a hearing with the Defense and Foreign Ministers. They will have to explain exactly what is going on with the US shield.

On Tuesday, the US Ambassador to Bulgaria, James Warlick, also explained the only discussions between the US and Bulgaria on the missile defense shield were held informally within NATO.

Warlick said last week that Bulgaria and the US were at the stage of unofficial talks over the possibility of Bulgaria joining the US missile defense in Europe.

Ellen Tauscher, the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, also stated earlier Tuesday that the US has not requested Bulgaria to adopt elements of the planned US missile defense shield but that the option is still open.

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