The Bulgarian government will ask Parliament to authorize the temporary deployment of up to eight U.S. military tanker aircraft at Bezmer Air Base after receiving an official request from Washington linked to American operations in the Middle East.
Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced that the request arrived in a diplomatic note from the U.S. Embassy on July 17 and that the Council of Ministers would formally submit the proposal to the National Assembly. He stressed that Bezmer is a joint-use military facility under the 2006 Defense Cooperation Agreement between Bulgaria and the United States, but emphasized that Bulgarian law requires parliamentary approval before such a deployment can take place. "Today, with a decision of the Council of Ministers, we will propose to the National Assembly to allow the presence of these tanker aircraft at Bezmer Airport," Radev said.
The prime minister used the occasion to criticize previous governments over the deployment of U.S. military aircraft at Sofia's Vasil Levski Airport. He accused the administrations associated with Boyko Borissov and Delyan Peevski of misleading the public about the reasons for allowing the aircraft to remain there while bypassing Parliament in the decision-making process. According to Radev, the use of a civilian airport near the capital for military aircraft created unnecessary complications.
