3 July 2008

The Parliamentary Committees on Natural Disasters and Accidents and on Defense held on July 3rd 2008 a joint hearing of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Emergencies Emel Etem, the Minister of Defense Nikolay Tzonev and the Chief of Staff, General Zlatan Stoykov. The meeting was attended also by the President's Secretary on military safety Nikola Nikolov.

The parliamentary committees issued recommendations to the Ministry of Defense asking it to reinforce the control and safety measures for all the unusable ammunition depots in the country. This was announced by the Chairman of the Defense Committee after the special meeting held in parliament. It was also recommended to make a special evaluation of the Ministry’s personnel.

The parliamentary committee asked the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to provide information within a week for all the measures undertaken to demilitarize and utilize all the currently unnecessary ammunitions in the country.
The Minister of Defense committed himself to provide the parliamentary committee with information regarding the measures and the damages caused by the blasts in the district of Chelopechene.