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Written by Clive
Leviev-Sawyer on October 5, 2017 in Bulgaria - Comments
Off on Bulgarian Defence Minister: ‘No need to hurry’ getting new jet
fighters
There is no need to hurry acquiring new jet fighters for
the Bulgarian Air Force, Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Krassimir
Karakachanov said in a television interview on October 5.
Karakachanov’s comments came on the morning of the day
that the National Assembly was scheduled to debate a report by an ad hoc
committee of Parliament that investigated the process that led to an expert
report presented to the caretaker cabinet earlier in 2017, ranking the offer by
Saab to supply new Gripens to the Air Force as the best.
The Defence Minister said that there was a saying “fast
deals, commissions are born”.
“I do not want to create such doubts,” said Karakachanov,
who has held the portfolio since the third Borissov government was formed in
May and who is a co-leader of the United Patriots, the grouping of nationalist
and far-right parties that is the minority partner in the government.
He said that the processes of overhauling existing military
jet aircraft and negotiating the purchase of new fighters should run in
parallel.
“The Prime Minister himself said that there should be no
apples of discord. We are still talking about what kind of aircraft to have. At
the same time, trains can be purchased, the one does not conradict the other,”
Karakachanov said.
The ad hoc committee’s report to Parliament said that the
multi-party committee found “serious shortcomings” in the process that led up
to the choice of Gripen.
In effect, the committee is recommending going back to
square one on the acquisition process, this time round not excluding the bid to
supply the Bulgarian Air Force with second-hand US-made F-16s.
The decision in June to appoint the committee was
criticised by the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party and by head of state
President Roumen Radev, who see it as a bid to discredit Radev, who was Air
Force commander before defeating the candidate of Boiko Borissov’s GERB party
in the November 2016 elections.
Bulgaria has been a Nato member since 2004, but its Air
Force has only about a handful of functioning – and ageing – Soviet-made
MiG-29s. The extremely costly process of maintaining and overhauling the ageing
Russian fighter jets has been fraught with controversy, including at the time
that the business to overhaul the fighter engines was handed to Poland, not
Russia, a move that has led to criminal charges against the Defence Minister of
the time, Nikolai Nenchev. The trial of Nenchev, who denies wrongdoing, is
ongoing.
Various moves by a succession of Bulgarian governments
over more than a decade regarding the acquisition of new fighter jets that
would meet Nato standards have come to nothing.
Original post: sofiaglobe.com
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