{"id":262271,"date":"2026-08-24T09:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T09:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/262271\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T09:53:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T09:53:18","slug":"two-us-tanker-aircraft-leave-bulgaria-a-month-after-deployment-upset-iran-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/262271\/","title":{"rendered":"Two US tanker aircraft leave Bulgaria a month after deployment upset Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Two U.S. tanker aircraft have left Bulgaria\u2019s Bezmer air base, Bulgaria\u2019s defense minister said on Saturday, nearly a month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/global\/europe\/2026\/07\/22\/unfazed-by-irans-threats-bulgaria-moves-to-aid-us-military-operations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/global\/europe\/2026\/07\/22\/unfazed-by-irans-threats-bulgaria-moves-to-aid-us-military-operations\/\">after their deployment<\/a> in the Balkan country angered Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">The United States, which has been at war with Iran since Feb. 28, requested their temporary deployment under an agreement governing the joint use of military facilities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Iran said at the time that their deployment would constitute complicity in \u201caggression and war crimes\u201d, a charge that Sofia dismissed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">The two U.S. Air Force KC-135 planes left Bulgaria on Friday, Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov told reporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">The U.S. authorities could not be immediately reached for comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">The deployment of the aircraft, approved by Bulgaria\u2019s parliament on July 22, led to protests by nearby residents who feared the planes would be attacked by Iranian missiles and drones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Stoyanov said all the aircraft\u2019s flights during their temporary deployment had been training missions over allied countries and that Bulgaria had \u201cno information about direct threats to our national security.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">\u201cWe are working in full coordination with the U.S. government and had prior information, which is why all our decisions were well-founded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two U.S. tanker aircraft have left Bulgaria\u2019s Bezmer air base, Bulgaria\u2019s defense minister said on Saturday, nearly a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[2238,1530,7078,2930,54,34,1486,798],"class_list":["post-262271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-bulgaria","tag-circulated-defense-news","tag-defense-news","tag-dn-dnr","tag-europe","tag-iran","tag-nato","tag-tanker"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117149880073121028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}