Spain sells "powerful" tanks to Morocco

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; May 01, 2005

Excerpt from report by Spanish newspaper La Razon web site on 1 May; subhead as supplied

Madrid: The Spanish government has sold to Mohammed VI's regime, for a token price, a score of US-made M-60 tanks (A3 version) deployed in the garrisons of [the Spanish North African enclaves of] Ceuta and Melilla, which the army plans to replace initially by the new Leopard tanks. Rabat has pledged not to use this military materiel against Ceuta and Melilla and has promised the Madrid authorities that it will deploy these tanks both in Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony, and in other territories in the kingdom.

Bono's visit

The transaction had two culminating points, Moroccan intelligence sources have confirmed to La Razon: The request was made during the visit to Tangier by the defence minister, Jose Bono, on 16 July last year and it was made concrete in December of the same year during the visit to Morocco by the defence chief of staff, Gen Felix Sanz. However it was finally sealed in April during the visit by the top brass of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces to Spain for the fourth meeting of the bilateral military commission. [passage omitted[

The sale of the Spanish tanks and of other armaments has been carried out with the knowledge and backing of the Pentagon, which is supervising the operation in order to prevent the upsetting of the military balance in North Africa. The sources say that the Spanish M-60 A3s will be positioned on the borders with Algeria, which is interpreted as a deterrent message addressed to the authorities in Algiers, who support the Polisario Front. [passage omitted]

Army tank specialists describe the supplying of a powerful firing system like the M-60 A 3 to a hypothetical enemy as a "tactical error". Its 105mm gun fires high-velocity "arrow" shells which puts the armour of the new Leopard tanks in a serious predicament. [passage omitted]

Official sources indicate that the sale of armaments to Morocco is in the context of the normalization of bilateral relations undertaken by [Jose Luis] Rodriguez Zapatero's government and Rabat's pledge to freeze its territorial claim to Ceuta and Melilla.

Source: La Razon web site, Madrid, in Spanish 1 May 05

© BBC Monitoring
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Original article in Spanish: http://www.larazon.es/noticias/noti_nac51230.htm
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