NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had asserted during his January visit to Bulgaria that the new Eastern European coordination centers will only be tasked with organizing and planning military drills of Alliance forces. Photo by EPA/BGNES
A coordination center set up by NATO as part of its recent eastern redeployment is due to open on Thursday morning in Bulgaria's capital Sofia.
President Rosen Plevneliev is to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside James Appathurai, NATO's Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy.
Last year the Alliance decided to build new facilities in six Eastern European member states, including Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. The move was agreed as an element of a wider strategy that includes measures to step up defences at NATO's eastern flank in light of what some member states describe as a threat of aggression from Russia.
Tensions between NATO and Moscow soared after the latter incorporated Crimea in March 2014.
The center in Sofia will employ 40 people, 20 of them Bulgarian. It will be responsible for organizing and coordinating international drills held in Bulgaria with other NATO forces.
Like the respective structures in other member states, it was to be in place by the end of the year.