Bulgaria Defense Minister in US for Talks on Missile Shield

Bulgaria's Defense Minister Anyu Angelov has arrived in the United States for an official visit, which is expected to focus on a planned missile defense shield in Europe that Sofia has said it wants to join.

Minister Angelov is scheduled to meet US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, senators, congressmen, representatives of the Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia, and with Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher.

The delegation includes Permanent Defense Secretary Nikolay Milkov, Bulgaria's Ambassador to the United States Elena Poptodorova and Air Force Commander Major General Konstantin Popov.

Angelov's seven-day trip will be "the launch of technical negotiations about NATO's missile defence in Europe in general," the minister told journalists on Friday.

The minister said he will “seek very concrete information at a political level on the new US administration's approach to missile defence in Europe" and its contribution to the project, even though the country has not received an official invitation to host elements of the common defence system.

Bulgarian officials have repeatedly said they supports plans for taking part in a new US missile defence system in Europe, playing down Russian fears about the system.

Neighboring Romania has announced that it would host interceptor missiles as part of a US missile defense system on its soil.

The planned deployment in Bulgaria and Romania comes after US President Barack Obama scrapped plans for a radar and interceptor missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland, which Russia fiercely opposed as a national security threat and a blow on its nuclear deterrent.

The plans have drawn sharp criticism from Moscow, where officials described the earlier project to base radar and missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland as a threat to Russia.

Washington says the missile shield is designed to protect against short- and medium-range missiles from Iran, and is not directed against Russia.

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