Former Bulgarian foreign minister Nadeschda Nejnski stated that the Bulgarian government delivered to Germany and NATO the information about Operation Horseshoe, the alleged plan of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic aimed at ethnic cleansing of Kosovo back in 1999.

In a documentary entitled 'The Secret History of the Horseshoe Plan' filmed by a private Bulgarian channel BTV, Nejnski said that she delivered the document as regards the operation to the then foreign minister of Germany Joschka Fischer.

The plan defined two goals, the first being destruction of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the second ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, Bulgarian media reported.

Commenting on allegations that Milosevic's plan Horseshoe aimed at ethnic cleansing of Kosovo never existed and was concocted by western intelligence services so as to justify NATO bombing Serbia, Nejnski said that the plan triggered various emotions and thus gave legitimacy to conflicts in Kosovo.

Many people wondered whether the high number of refugees was triggered by bombing or something else, and the answer is that the latter was the case, that is, the Horseshoe plan of Serbian intelligence services, Nejnski stated.

Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) recalls that the document Operation Horseshoe was first presented to the public by the then German defence minister Rudolph Sharping on April 7, 1999, who claimed that the finding of intelligence services is the key evidence of Milosevic's plan for ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

Sharping presented the document to the public despite clear warnings by German intelligence services that there is no evidence to prove the document's authenticity and that its sources are highly questionable, but it came in handy to marginalise all opponents of the intervention against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of the time.

Former Austrian foreign minister Wolfgang Schussel also distributed the document to ministers of NATO member countries, which brought Austria into the focus of controversies related to the document.

The data that the German defence minister delivered as regards Yugoslav security forces are incorrect and contradictory, Austrian ex defence minister Werner Fasslabend told MPs in the summer of 1999.

According to RTS, the document which the Bulgarian intelligence service dubbed Operation Horseshoe is a product of analysis of events dating back to January and February 1999, which was drafted by Bulgarian intelligence analysts.

The document was prepared on the basis of the report filed by the OSCE monitoring mission, according to which Serbian units were deployed on the outskirts of Kosovo immediately before the war, which induced the Bulgarian analysts to entitle the alleged operation 'Horseshoe'.