November 25, 2005

THE NOOSE AROUND THE ARABS:

Turkey and Israel start defense cooperation (Hurriyet, 11/25/05)

Turkey and Israel have commenced their defense contract cooperation with a ceremony to mark the joint production of upgraded M60A1 tanks for the Turkish military. The ceremonies held at Kayseri, the site of the new production line, were attended by top Turkish and Israeli officials on Tuesday. There was some initial tension over the delay of the contract by Israel, as it conducted field tests on technologies needed for the upgrade, however this seems to have been solved.

The program will cost $688 million and calls for the upgrade of 170 M60 tanks to front-line condition based on advanced technologies and systems developed for Israel’s Merkava main battle tank. Israel committed to transferring to Turkey a significant amount of technology needed to ensure efficient in-country conversion and production of the modernized platforms, under the contract concluded by the two governments in 2002.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 25, 2005 11:24 AM
Comments

The logical 3rd member of the alliance is Iran.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at November 25, 2005 10:11 PM

Who's the putative enemy?

Posted by: erp at November 26, 2005 8:35 AM

and India and Russia.

Posted by: oj at November 26, 2005 10:01 AM

The Russians are too dirty - and they haven't cleansed themselves yet. Perhaps they never will. If Putin's 'successor' turns around and disinfects the country, maybe.

But somebody put a statue of Iron Feliks back up in Moscow recently (from Kasparov's piece in the WSJ last week). That is a major step in the wrong direction.

Posted by: jim hamlen at November 26, 2005 10:32 AM

jim:

They're dying off too fast to bother cleaning up, but we can get them to use their nukes in an emergency since they have so little to lose. Think of it as renditioning the apocalypse.

Posted by: oj at November 26, 2005 10:36 AM

The M60 is old technology, it is totally outclassed by the M1. I'd be interested to know what kinds of upgrades the Israelis are making.

Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 26, 2005 11:47 AM

If only Ahmadinejad would issue a fatwa against vodka....

Posted by: jim hamlen at November 26, 2005 10:21 PM
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