Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolay Nenchev on Monday dismissed Veselin Ivanov, the director of the Defense Information Service (DIS), the country's military intelligence, officials said.

"We were unable to achieve consensus on important issues regarding DIS, especially its human resources development, where 39 percent of the senior staff has been appointed before 1991," Nenchev's press office quoted him as saying.

The need for greater interoperability with NATO was another reason for the dismissal, according to Nenchev. "I think that many of the elements of this cooperation are currently lacking," the press release quoted him as saying.

Nenchev appointed Colonel Svetoslav Daskalov as an interim director of DIS with the expectation to rapidly implement the necessary reforms, giving a chance to young officers to prove their professional skills, and providing them with opportunities to rise in the hierarchy, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, Nenchev expected that DIS would continue to provide timely and relevant information, according to the press release.

This is the third replacement of key executives of Bulgarian law enforcement institutions recently, after the resignation of Svetlozar Lazarov, secretary general of the Ministry of Interior, and Vladimir Pisanchev, Chairman of the State Agency for National Security (SANS), the country's counterintelligence service. The two officials resigned on Friday at the request of the Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. Endit

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