SOFIA: Bulgarian Communist-era military intelligence archives will now be open to researchers and journalists, Defence Minister Nikolay Nentchev announced Wednesday.
The minister said he had released around 30,000 archived objects to the Civil Commission, which is in charge of examining documents from this period.
"Bulgaria needs to shed light on the repressive structures of communism," said the minister, adding that the country needs to cut itself loose from the "secrets" and "dependancies" linked to the Communist-era.
In principle, the revelation of ex-agent names and collaborators of the Bulgarian secret service has no legal consequences.
In 2011, however, dozens of Bulgarian ambassadors, including those posted in Berlin, Athens, Beijing, Stockholm and at the UN and UNESCO, were recalled after their past activities were revealed.
Until now, the Communist-era archives were only accessible to the defence minister, under the pretext of keeping the names of foreign agents secret. But the president of the Civil Commission, Evtim Kostadinov, said the names will remain secret.
Until the fall of communist dictator Todor Jivkov in 1989, Bulgaria was considered one of the most loyal allies to the former Soviet Union, and its secret service sometimes assassinated opponents abroad, including with the infamous "poisoned umbrella" murder of Bulgarian defector Georgy Markov in 1978.
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