WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will attend an informal NATO summit attended by 34 international delegations in Sofia on April 27 and 28.
During the summit, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin and Rice will sign an agreement allowing U.S. troops to use the Bulgarian military bases of Novo Selo, Graf Ignatievo and Bezmer.
Bulgarian Defense Minister Vesselin Bliznakov told bTV on April 26 that the agreement contains no secret clauses, but is rather an agreement between the two countries as allies and partners with similar security objectives.
Bliznakov said that the Bulgarian people would be given specific details about the accord after Parliament discusses and ratifies the text.
The accord contains two annexes covering types of facilities and logistic maintenance issues. Bliznakov emphasized that while there was a chance that some technical agreements might later be concluded, they would not change the character of the agreement or introduce new clauses that haven't previously been discussed.
The issue was raised in parliamentary discussions about the United States giving Bulgaria previous notice of its intentions if it planned to use the facilities to attack third countries, but Bliznakov said that the issue had not been part of the discussions and therefore is not part of the agreement.
Two days of high-level strategic talks between U.S. and Pakistani officials opened Wednesday in Islamabad.
GEO News reported on April 26 that Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan is chairing the discussion, with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns leading the American team.
President George W. Bush mentioned the discussions during his visit to Pakistan on March 3.
There promises to be some hard bargaining during the meetings. A Foreign Office source speaking on condition of anonymity said that Pakistan would demand that Washington provide it with U.S. civilian nuclear technology assistance in a deal similar to the one that the Bush administration agreed to with India.
The issue of Iranian uranium enrichment is also on the agenda, as is Pakistan's covert supply of nuclear technology to Iran. Other foreign policy issues include terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The teams will also hold wide-ranging discussions on bilateral relations, trade, investment, education, health and earthquake reconstruction aid.
The 1991 implosion of Communism in the USSR hit Soviet defense industries hard as their output was responsible for an estimated 60 percent of the country's industrial output.
Despite 15 years of restructuring, Deputy Minister of Industry and Energy Andrei Reus said that 25 percent of Russia's strategic enterprises face bankruptcy.
RIA Novosti reported on April 25 that Reus told a conference discussing ways to prevent strategically important businesses from going bankrupt that 242 of Russia's 948 strategic enterprises were in the midst of or could face bankruptcy proceedings, noting: "At the moment, bankruptcy procedures have been launched against 44 of them, and another 198 are showing all signs of bankruptcy and may be subject to pre-trial rehabilitation, according to the Federal Tax Service."
Among the problems facing strategic enterprises were the heavy-handed legacy of centralized communist bureaucratic management and structures, which were slow to adapt to free-market principles, and poor marketing skills.
Among the suggestions made by Reus to stave off financial ruin are coordinated actions by interested parties during pre-trial rehabilitation and the suspension of bankruptcy procedures if an enterprise succeeds in clearing its debts. Reus also suggested legislation to ban financially unsound strategic enterprises from suspending their operations, while arbitration managers who fail to achieve production norms should be summarily dismissed.
Reus said, "The term for financial recovery and external management has to be increased, because a production cycle at strategic enterprises usually exceeds one or two years."
Additional drags on the performance of strategic enterprises include government debt on defense sector contracts and a shortfall of government funding.
In its quest for energy assets India is courting both U.S. enemies and former allies, discussing a natural gas pipeline with Iran and developing Uzbek natural gas resources. Uzbekistan has offered India access to its hydrocarbon reserves on a 50-50 exploration and development basis.
Uzbekistan is one of the world's 10 largest producers of gas, and is estimated to have 594 million barrels of oil reserves and estimated 66.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It is the second-largest natural gas producer in the Commonwealth of Independent States, after Russia.
PTI reported on April 26 that Uzbek President Islam Karimov made the development proposal during talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Other issues discussed included terrorism, drug trafficking, the Afghanistan situation and United Nations reforms, with Karimov telling Singh that Uzbekistan "resolutely backed" India's quest for permanent seat on an expanded U.N. Security Council.
During a joint press conference with Singh, Karimov said that the two nations would establish working oil and natural gas groups.
Uzbekistan and India signed seven pacts, including a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in oil and natural gas between India's Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Uzbekneftegaz. Memorandums of cooperation between Gas Authority of India Limited and Uzbekneftegaz and the Coal Ministry of India and Uzbekistan's State Committee were also signed.
Karimov said, "Uzbekistan, based on its cooperation with a number of countries, particularly China, South Korea, Russia and some countries of the European Union, is ready to allocate geological territory to Indian companies to explore the resource of gas, oil and other hydrocarbons."
Karimov added that the "next step would be (the) signing of (a) document for specifically issuing allocation on (the) basis of concessions to Indian companies of territories for further allocation of hydrocarbon resources in Uzbekistan."
Singh told journalists that India saw Uzbekistan "as an important element in any effort to optimally utilize the energy resources of Central Asia."
Security Agencies in Bosnia-Herzegovina are investigating possible regional terrorist groups preparing for attacks in the area.
B92 radio reported on April 26 that sources speaking on condition of anonymity said the Bosnia-Herzegovina security agencies are actively investigating individuals and groups, including Al Hussein Imad, also known as Abu Hamza.
Imad is the informal leader of the former Mujahideen community in Bocinja village in central Bosnia, and has threatened that the recent revoking of illegally received Bosnian citizenship of his group's Muslim supporters could produce unrest.
Sarajevo is uncertain of how many of the almost 6,000 mujahideen who fought in the Al Mujahideen brigades during the Bosnian war received Bosnian citizenship, but believe that up to several hundred now have Bosnian passports. The majority of the Al Mujahideen brigades came from the Middle East and many received new passports under new names.
Western intelligence agencies are pressuring Bosnia-Herzegovina officials to locate and conduct checks on these people, who may have been in contact with three Bosnians arrested on suspicions of terrorism in Sweden in 2005. Following the arrests, seven people were subsequently arrested in Sarajevo on similar charges.
