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Xinhua News Agency November 24, 2009 U.S. pushes Bulgaria to stop using Soviet arms SOFIA: The United States on Tuesday pushed Bulgaria to stop using Soviet armaments at the International Defense and Security Business Conference. "In these tough economic times, all allies are facing difficult budgetary decisions. But we must not forget our obligations to the alliance and its core missions. For all NATO allies, the key imperatives are deploy ability and interoperability," Susan M. Sutton, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Bulgaria, told the conference, which is organized by the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria and the NATO Information Center in Sofia. "One way to free up resources for these important missions is to cut outdated legacy systems that are either ineffective or unsuited to multilateral operations," Sutton said. She added that the transparent accounting of excess weapon and ammunition stockpiles and their proper disposal is also a relatively quick way to generate resources, reduce costs and modernize the force. "I know that my government has been impressed by the Bulgarian government's commitment to tackling this problem which, let's face it, is not unique to Bulgaria. Every country grapples with waste and corruption," Sutton said. She was supported by Valery Rachev, head of the Bulgarian Minister of Defense' Cabinet. "Bulgaria has to stop maintaining its Soviet armaments. This is already money for nothing," Rachev told the conference, clarifying that was his personal opinion. "We don't speak about the qualities of the Soviet arms. The Bulgarian armaments must have total operational interoperability with the NATO standards," Rachev said. He added the new NATO Strategic Concept, which is expected to be approved in 2010, has to find a formula allowing the countries having resources to work with those who have the will to work but haven't got enough money. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato Blog site: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/ To subscribe, send an e-mail to: [email protected] or [email protected] Daily digest option available. ============================== --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bNM5nn.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [email protected] For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=TEXFOOTER --^----------------------------------------------------------------
