Major General Roy Martin Umbarger, the commander of the US National Guard in Indiana, will receive honorary citizenship of Bratislava on September 26 from Mayor Milan Ftáčnik, according to Ftáčnik’s spokesperson, Ľubomír Andrássy, the TASR newswire reported.
“Consent was given by the city counsellors to grant honorary citizenship based on a request made to Bratislava by Slovakia’s chief of General Staff, General Ľubomír Bulík," said Andrássy, as quoted by TASR.
Bratislava wants to bestow the honour on Umbarger in recognition of his significant contribution to peace and friendship between the Slovak and American nations and to his help in professionalising and modernising the Slovak armed forces which form part of NATO, TASR wrote.
“Umbarger is the first foreigner outside the EU to ever receive this,” Andrássy told TASR.
Only three other people have been awarded honorary citizenship so far: former mayor of Vienna Helmut Zilk in 1990; German soprano Edit Gruber in 1997; and former Austrian ambassador to Slovakia Maximilian Pammer in 2009.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
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