On 25th November, 2010, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov delivered a lecture at the public event entitled “NATO after Lisbon: the New Tendencies and the New Conception”, organized by the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria. In his speech, Minister Mladenov said that the front of the Bulgarian national security was Afghanistan. According to him, it was crucial that Bulgaria participated in NATO’s collective defense and gave its contribution to maintaining the bond between the USA and Europe.

H.E. Mladenov was explicit about the current threat that represented the situation in Afghanistan. Under the circumstances, “the threat coming from the Taliban is a threat for all of us”, stated Mr. Mladenov.

“If we have to figure out how to defend the front line of our national security, we have to say that there are at least two major tasks to complete: not to allow global terrorism to possess safe havens and unlimited opportunities for maneuvering in a key state in Central Asia. We should not allow for innocent people to be killed or maltreated by terrorists”, added the Foreign Minister.

As for NATO’s anti-missile defense plan, Mladenov stated that the member countries had achieved a political agreement, but the precise architecture of the system was not ready yet. In order for the common defense system to be complete and effective, every member state would have to contribute with its own resources, emphasized the Minister.