Bulgarian-Turkish border fence to be completed ‘within days’ – minister
Bulgaria is set to complete the controversial project to build a fence on the Bulgarian-Turkish border “within days”, the country’s Defence Minister Angel Naidenov said on June 30.
“There is no other institution that would have been able to build a defence structure within a period of four months, of which two months were constant rain. We are within days of completing this significant construction for the Bulgarian army, necessary for Bulgaria’s security,” Naidenov told reporters, as quoted by news agency Focus.
Naidenov’s statement came on the same day that broadcaster Darik Radio said observers estimated that the fence was most likely to be completed in late-July or early-August. The same report said that having made erroneous statements about the fence’s degree of completion in the past, the army was no longer giving detailed new updates on the 30km fence.
The fence project was approved towards the end of 2013 by the Bulgarian Socialist Party government as a response to a significant increase of illegal crossings into Bulgaria from Turkey as a result of instability in the Middle East and North Africa, with many refugees fleeing the crisis in Syria.
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(Bulgarian-Turkish border area near Matochina. Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
