site.btaUPDATED Vazrazhdane: No Risk for Bulgaria as Long as Hostilities Stay Away from Danube Delta

According to the Vazrazhdane party in Parliament, there is no risk for Bulgaria as long as hostilities stay away from Danube delta. "As long as military actions stay away from the Danube Delta and the Russians do not start active actions to take control of the remaining Ukrainian Black Sea coast, there will be no risks [for Bulgaria]," Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov told the press in Parliament where he was asked to comment the Tuesday missile blast in Poland.

Kostadinov commented that even if the military operations reach the Danube delta, it is another 180 km from there to Bulgaria. "The bigger risk is for Romania," the MP added. 

He said it was a matter of time for such an incident to happen in Poland. It always happens when there are such military conflicts. He added that it remained to be seen whether the missile was fired by the Russian or Ukrainian armed forces.

He believes that the likelihood that it was a misguided missile is 99% and that it is highly unlikely that the Ukrainians or Russians intentionally fired the missile to hit Poland. 

Asked whether he believes it right for Bulgaria to express solidarity with Poland, Kostadinov said it made no sense to express solidarity for the fact that a straying missile, Russian or Ukrainian, had hit a tractor in Poland. "Just as we were not shown solidarity when the house in Gorna Banya was bombed. No solidarity, we did not receive an apology then," Kostadinov added.

He was referring to a 1999 incident when a stray NATO missile went through the roof of a house in the Gorna Banya suburb of Sofia, without exploding.

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea told the Los Angeles Times that apologies had been made to the Bulgarian government and US Secretary of Defense William Cohen expressed regret over the incident.

Bulgaria has had its share of stray missile hits during the Yugoslav crisis, all of them in 1999:

March 26 - The remains of a NATO air-to-air missile fall west of Trun (Western Bulgaria) near the border with FR Yugoslavia shortly after midnight.  The missile is fired from Yugoslav territory;

March 31 - An air-to-air missile falls 500 m away from the village of Elov Dol near Pernik (Western Bulgaria), 20 km away from the Yugoslav border about 2.15 p.m.;

April 8 - A strong explosion is heard in several villages in the region of Breznik and Trun (Northern Bulgaria).  Experts carry out an inspection in the region but do not find anything;

April 13 - A weather probe with inscriptions in German falls near the village of Bobeshino, near Kyustendil about 10 p.m.;

April 22 - A NATO missile falls 500 m away from the last houses of the village of Babitsa near Breznik about 7 p.m.  The missile was moving west-east.  The windows of a friction lining plant, the culture centre, the town hall and private houses were
broken.

May 7 - A missile lands near the village of Lyulin, Pernik district, some 15 km southwest of Sofia. There are no victims or damage. It lands at about 2 km away from Pernik's Stomana Steel Works.