It became clear that Bulgaria has allowed allied and foreign armed forces to pass through Bulgarian airspace and reside on the territory of the country. To whom did we give our sky and bases and for what, for what missions? These questions were answered in an interview for "Osche ut dzhen" on BNT by the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nadezhda Neynski.
"First: we do not have bases," she began.
From Neynski's words it became clear that Bulgaria has allowed allied NATO aircraft to land at a Bulgarian airport for training missions. This was done according to an official note from the American Embassy, which was respected by the government of Rosen Zhelyazkov, whose Minister of Defense is now also part of the official cabinet (editor's note: Atanas Zapryanov).
"Today there was a missile that was intercepted in Turkish airspace. Before I came to the studio, I spoke with the Turkish Foreign Minister. He said that he received assurances that it was because of wrong coordinates. But as he himself says: a mistake can be made once, but it will be monitored very carefully. They have warned the Iranian side that this case cannot be repeated. At this stage, Article 5 of NATO has not been activated, but the situation is changing and we are in constant consultations with the American side so that we can prevent the mandate of the planes that are on our territory from changing. This is very important - that they remain solely for training activities", she further commented.
Nejinsky stressed that all security services are mobilized and coordinate regularly in order to be able to react quickly if necessary. The Ministry of Defense is preparing a risk analysis, on the basis of which additional measures will be taken in the future, if necessary.
And she stressed that at this point Bulgaria has not given permission for the planes to be used for military operations in Iran. "If such a request comes from the American side, this is already a fundamentally different situation and this will be submitted to the National Assembly, where there will be a debate and a decision will be made on what to do about the new request," the Foreign Minister explained.