"We are expecting that at the end of January or the beginning of February the US State Department and Congress will decide about stationing American troops in Bulgaria and that it will be positive. We have to be ready to negotiate," Svinarov told the newspaper Trud.

The government on Wednesday set up a working group for such negotiations. The Bulgarian army's chief commander General Nikola Kolev said the bases in Bulgaria would be "small and provisionally used."

The Americans have been looking at the airports Graf Ignatievo near the southern city of Plovdiv, Bezmer near Yambol in the southeast and Sarafovo near Bourgas in the east, as well as the Novo Selo military base near Sliven in the east, Trud said citing official defence ministry sources.

US forces had used Sarafovo, which is on the Black Sea, during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as an aircraft depot and refuelling base.

Novo Selo has been used for several years now as a training centre for French and Italian army troops.

Parliament had in December said Bulgaria "supports the redeployment of American forces in military bases abroad and approves of the consultations already begun on the issue between the United States and Bulgaria".

US authorities are thinking of redeploying their armed forces from the Cold War posture that was designed to repel a Soviet invasion in Europe.

American troops are to be moved further east in Europe to be closer to the Middle East.

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