• Turkey agreed with Israeli IMI for tank modernization project without international tender (March 20)

Turkey and Israel have agreed the main points of a deal which would allow Israel Military Industries (IMI) to modify 170 first batch of aging M-60A3 Patton tanks to the  M-60 SABRA standards. Turkish Ministry of National Defense and IMI delegations agreed on upgrading of M-60s with new 120mm barrel gun, powerful engine, transmission, armor, Knight day & night fire control systems  and electronic systems in Turkey with full technology transfer under a cost of 250 million US dollars. The agreement also covers Depot Level Maintenance (DLM) in Turkish Tank Maintenance Units. IMI and US General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) previously agreed that IMI would offer SABRA modular kits for M-60 modernization project and would not attend Turkish Tank-2000 project with its Merkawa-III tank while GDLS would withdrawn its M-60-2000 offer from tank modernization tender and would bid to Tank-2000 project with advanced M-1A2T Abrams tanks.   

Turkey also started alternative negotiations with IMI for modernization of 160 Leopard I tanks in the case of probable German governmental vote against Krauss Maffei Wegman's similar offer. (Hurriyet, Metehan Demir; Defense and Aerospace, AFP)