Bulgaria Improving Defense Capabilities, President Believes

Bulgaria's President Rosen Plevneliev and NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General James Appathurai at the opening ceremony of a NATO coordination center in Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo BTA

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said on Thursday that NATO would build all the capabilities needed to defend sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Plevneliev made his remarks at the at the ceremony which marked the official opening of a NATO Force Integration Unit (NFIU) in Bulgaria's capital Sofia.

Located not far the landmark Ruski Pametnik ("Russian Monument") near downtown Sofia, the NFIU is a coordination center which will be tasked with organizing and planning international drills involving NATO forces on Bulgarian soil, as well as planning of potential deployments.

It will be one of the six centers (the others are in Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland) set up as part of NATO's major redeployment in Eastern Europe since the Cold War ended.

Stressing the improved capabilities of Bulgaria's armed forces over the past years, the head of state also called on the military to refrain from assigning supplies of equipment or other items to non-NATO states.
 
For his part, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs James Appathurai, who was the NATO official to declare the NFIU open, pointed out that the Alliance is "not seeking confrontation with any country".

Appathurai praised the opening of the new units in Eastern Europe, pointing to the six respective countries' needs to "adapt" themselves to the growing regional instability.

He was referring to what the Alliance perceives as potential aggression from Russia which NATO says might be looming after the crisis in Ukraine.