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There are no requirements for preliminary coordination, approval by foreign embassies, countries, of the appointment of the Chairman of the State Intelligence Agency (SIA), these are sovereign national decisions. This was stated during his hearing in the National Assembly by the head of SIA Antoan Gechev.

The hearing of the heads of the special services is at the request of the parliamentary group of "Vazrazhdane" in connection with the recording made last Friday by the now former MP from "Continuing the Change-Democratic Bulgaria" Radostin Vassilev.

"I can't comment on whether anyone somewhere, without my knowledge, has agreed something," Gechev said. And he added that he is not the person who can say how legal it is and how it is proceeded in such cases.

The activity of SIA is based on several principles, one of which is political neutrality, stressed the chairman of the agency.

The head of SANS: The heads of the special services are elected in Bulgaria, there is no Russian influence!

Antoan Gechev told MPs that when he took the helm two years ago, the agency was not well resourced, and the information and analytical work was scattered in different units of SIA, the information was everywhere, and the employees in it did not talk to each other. In his words, international cooperation was also scattered in an illogical way. "Intelligence in 2021 was conducted only on working days, from 9:00 to 17:00, on holidays and weekends there were guards in the agency," the current chairman said. "Despite the extremely limited resources, during these two years we have managed to make a lot of progress and SIA has been reformed and structured," Antoan Gechev assured.