This week Bulgaria’s newly elected Minister of Interior Rumiana Bachvarova held a series of meetings in the USA, after the visit of FBI Director James Comey to Bulgaria in the first week of March and the visit of Bulgaria’s Deputy Premier Meglena Kuneva to the States. Minister Bachvarova’s first foreign visit proved Radio Bulgaria’s forecast at the beginning of this month that new developments of the bilateral relations in the security field could be expected.

Although Minister Bachvarova was recently appointed at her new position, she was welcomed by the Secretary of the Homeland Security of the United States of America Jeh Johnson, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Leslie Caldwell, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Gregory Starr, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of States Victoria Nuland and the States Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism Tina Kaidanow. The cooperation in the security field is developing quickly. Apparently there is a strong mutual confidence between the two countries regarding priorities such as the fight against terrorism, border security and cyber security. Bulgaria and the USA are situated far from each other, but the border security issue has been gaining momentum in their bilateral cooperation. There are some topics of mutual interest that stay behind this cooperation: the prevention of foreign soldiers’ trafficking from and to conflict regions, human trafficking and other forms of trans-border crimes. It is of extreme importance to Bulgaria to use the database of the US National Counterterrorism Center, the US Terrorist Screening Center and the National Targeting Center of the US Homeland Security Department. That is why a special agreement was signed during Minister Bachvarova’s visit.

Later Interior Minister Bachvarova departed to Canada. The main topics of discussions there fell on Canada’s experience in the immigrant integration field, the border control, the prevention of foreign soldiers trafficking to and from conflict regions.Bearing in mind the new global challenges, it is no surprise that the countries including Bulgaria have started to replace the bilateral cooperation in the security field with multilateral cooperation.