Bulgarian Defense Head Upbeat about Balkan Security, Stability

Defense | June 18, 2011, Saturday // 15:52|  views

Bulgarian Defense Minister Anyu Angelov is highly optimistic about international security in the Balkans. Photo by BGNES

Both the political climate and the thinking in the Balkans have changed tremendously in a positive direction in the past 10 years, Bulgarian Defense Minister Anyu Angelov told the 28th International Conference on Global Security in Paris, France.

"If the countries in the Balkan region continue to build upon these positive developments, this will certainly lead to an improvement of their economic condition as well," stated Gen. Angelov, who was one of the speakers within the panel entitled "Perspectives of Regional Leaders: Balkans and Black Sea Region" within the global security conference. The same panel also featured the Deputy PM of Georgia Grigori Baramidze, Russia's Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov, and the Defense Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Montenegro – Selmo Cikotic, Davor Bozinovic, Ljubica Zelusic, and Boro Vucinic, respectively.

"Bulgaria plays an important role for strengthening the cooperation and encouraging reforns in the security sphere in the Balkans. A successful example in hand are the meetings of Defense Ministers within the Southeast Europe Cooperation Process (SEECP), which Bulgaria has been charing in the past two years, and within which we have achieved a lot for developing the NATO and EU standards and policies in the region," Angelov stated making clear his optimism for the stability of the Balkans.

In his words, the countries from the region have achieved much in terms stabilizing the Balkans and are now able to participate in peace-keeping missions abroad. These countries should be aware that they can count unconditionally on NATO for their security, the Bulgarian Defense Minister believes.

Angelov underscored that the NATO member states from the region should create actions plans and that the Alliance itself should create crisis reaction plans in order to be able to stage more timely, efficient, and decisive actions in the event of crises such as the situation in Libya where dictator Muammar Gaddafi is facing a popular uprising.

The 28th International Conference on Global Security in Paris featured the defense ministers of France, the UK, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, among other high-ranking international officials.

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Tags: Anyu Angelov, Defense Minister, Balkans, Balkan, stability, Southeast Europe, South East European Cooperation Process, SEECP, Paris, global security conference

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