SOFIA, March 24: Bulgaria and the United States have reached agreement on setting up military bases in the former communist country, the Bulgarian negotiator and US ambassador said on Friday.

Washington and Sofia ‘have reached a cooperation agreement on the possibility of using certain military sites’, negotiator Lubomir Ivanov told a press conference.

The sites are to be the Novo Selo training base near Sliven in the east, the air bases of Bezmer, near Yambol, in the southeast and Graf Ignatievo, near Plovdiv in the south and a warehouse near Aitos in the east, US ambassador John Beyrle said.

The agreement will be signed when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Sofia next month.—AFP