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Bulgaria Assesses Security Risks

12 09 2007  Sofia_ Kosovo’s unresolved status remains the biggest security risk in the region, Bulgaria’s National Intelligence Service chief, Kircho Kirov, said at a forum on security in South-eastern Europe.

According to Kirov, any further delay to reaching a settlement on Kosovo increases the probability of a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo’s Albanian leadership and subsequent recognition by a number of countries.

The current situation might revive radical groups of Kosovo’s independence-seeking majority Albanians or its minority Serbs who want to remain part of Serbia.

In such a tense environment a minor incident could set off ethnic clashes similar to those in March 2004, said Kirov.

The National Intelligence Service chief also warned that an unfavourable development in Kosovo was likely to result in the radicalization of ethnic Albanian demands in Macedonia.

According to intelligence information, there are plans for a referendum on whether the ethnic Albanian-inhabited village of Tanusevci in Macedonia should join neighbouring Kosovo. 

Kirov added that "sleeper" cells of international organizations – agents awaiting instructions -- were very likely to be based in the region, including Bulgaria.

According to Nikolai Zlatev, a department chief at the National Security Service, some 10,000 nationals of so-called “risk countries” were currently in Bulgaria.

Zlatev said that the transit flow of people posed another threat to Bulgaria because it would help the infiltration of terrorist elements into the country.

"The Balkans were of interest to Islamic radicalism in the 1990s", Zlatev said.

“At present there is no process of radicalization detected among Muslims in Bulgaria.  This ensures stability and security in the country, and shows that Bulgaria has a working model for the successful prevention of radical Islamism", Zlatev said.

"Terrorism cannot be fought by way of isolated operations", Bulgarian Interior Minister Roumen Petkov said at the conference.

Petkov argued that the six years since the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York have demonstrated the need for multinational cooperation in combating the threat from terrorism.