AS TURKEY BUYS RUSSIAN S-400 MISSILE SYSTEMS, MOROCCO ALSO SHOWS INTEREST

Photo: RIA/Aleksey Davichev

According www.alyaoum24.com, Morocco considers buying Russian S-400 missile systems in order to diversify their military, as Morocco wants to be prepared for future wars.

The Moroccan-Russian negotiations came to a close on October 11 during an official visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to Morocco. 11 agreements were signed, agricultural, educational, tourism, energy and military spheres.

Morocco takes part in joint military production projects with India, China and Brazil. They are interested in acquiring anti-air missile defense systems, by way of licensing production from other countries.

Military expert Abdel Rahman Mekkawi considers the transaction a decision to be made primarily by Russia, as a sort of balancing measure between Morocco and Algiers in Northern Africa.

In an Akhbar Al Yaum interview, Mekkawi said that Morocco and Russia have a lot of common military interests in Northern Africa. He added, that future wars in Northern Africa will depend heavily on long range missiles, drones and anti-air defense systems.

Moscow and Ankara have signed on the sale of S-400 missile systems to Turkey, with President Erdogan saying that the first advance payment has been made.

“We’ve reached an agreement with Russia regarding the S-400 systems. There are some technical details left to muse over, but we will discuss them during my visit [to Sochi] with the participation of our specialists, including ones from the Ministry of Defense. We want this deal to be closed as soon as possible,” Erdogan said at a press-conference, before his visit to Sochi where he is to meet with his Russian counterpart.

According to Turkish Minister of National Defense Nurettin Canikli, despite having bought the missile systems, Turkey aims to manufacture it’s own anti-air missile defense systems.

“We’ve bought the S-400 systems. That’s a done deal. However we don’t want to stop there, as we want to bolster our own production output. The anti-air missile defense systems Turkey uses should be developed in Turkey.” According to Canikli, that’s the reason behind signing an agreement with French-Italian company Eurosam.

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