The minister of communication and transport Hakob Arshakyan met with the Bulgarian ambassador Maria Tsotsorkova-Kaymaktchiyeva on February 11. Arshakyan said there are excellent preconditions for bilateral cooperation in the spheres of communication, transport, as well as technology.

The ambassador mentioned the necessity to include the proposals of the Armenian side in the upcoming meeting of the Armenian-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission. A wide array of sectors are listed, including modern technology.

One first looks at the meeting of the Bulgarian ambassador and the minister of communication and transport as an ordinary working meeting but several circumstances prompt interesting implications and prospects which will come into being in the result of effective work.

The ministry of communication and transport will also cover the defense industry if the bill on the structure of government is adopted. Minister Arshakyan told reporters that the prospect of defense industry in Armenia should not be imagined in the form of tanks or cannons but new technological solutions.

It is not a secret that modern defense and security includes a variety of tools and components based on continuously upgraded high tech solutions. After all, they are also the guarantee of upgraded capacities of tanks and cannons.

On the other hand, Bulgaria has a big defense industry where mostly Soviet types of arms are produced. In this regard, Armenia and Bulgaria can have mutually beneficial cooperation, considering the technological and scientific potential.

At the same time, it is worth paying attention to the fact that recently Bulgaria has become one of the main defense suppliers of the U.S. allies in the Near East. For example, Iran was one of the biggest clients of the Bulgarian defense industry.

From this point of view, it is worth recalling a proposal by the security advisor to the U.S. President John Bolton in Yerevan on a proposal to acquire American weapons.

Afterwards, a Russian-language Eurasian media made an interesting publication on a series of military air cargo shipments from Bulgaria to Yerevan. The authors of the publication associated these shipments with Bolton’s statement in Yerevan.

Is there a realistic prospect to transform the Armenian-Bulgarian technical military cooperation to that of defense industry? It is possible that the minister of communication and transport and the Bulgarian ambassador are trying to understand the possibility of such prospects.

This circumstance is interesting in the context of the statement by Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia in Washington. The high-ranking official of the U.S. Department of Defense stated that she plans to visit Armenia to discuss possibilities of deepening the Armenian-American defense cooperation.

May Bulgaria become one of the “routes” of deepening the U.S.-Armenian defense cooperation?

https://www.lragir.am/en/2019/02/12/70970