Bulgarian Army Ready to Help Tackling Migrant Crisis

The refugee centres in Bulgaria  still have available capacity, but are filling up quickly. This was announced by Defense Minister Georgi Panayotov, referring to the information he has from the Advisory Council on National Security under the President He admitted that if the refugee wave escalates - new centres may need to be opened, but that has not yet happened. The Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces may join in policing the state border. We have developed plans how to counter a migrant wave both along the border with Turkey and along the border with Greece, the minister assured. Such readiness has been confirmed and we c\n now deploy up to 1,050 servicemen and 145pieces of equipment along the border tocope with a migrant crisis," Panayotov told bTV.

Georgi Panayotov announced that since NATO Resolute Support operation in Afghanistan is over, we do not have any troops there.

"We have Bulgarian citizens in Afghnistan who are civilian contractors to international organizations on the territory of Afghanistan. They have performed different tasks, we continue to receive information about their number because they have no obligation to notify the civil administration. I mean, we are in very close contact with our allies and partners and some of these Bulgarian citizens have already been removed from the territory of Afghanistan."

"Our participation in the NATO mission is an invaluable experience for the Bulgarian armed forces, because far from the homeland they carried out defense tasks on the territory of Bulgaria, however strange it may sound. The officers, sergeants and soldiers  shared rhis expeience with their colleagues who are here and have not been on foreign missions.

Interoperability with allies and partners, performance of tasks in completely different climatic conditions, different natural conditions, different cultural environment. The Bulgarian army has not lost a single serviceman in all these 20 years of our presence in Afghanistan," the minister added.

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