MOSCOW. Feb 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia and Spain will hold their first ever joint military exercises in 2004, Spanish Defense Minister Federico Trillo said in an interview with the Moscow-based Izvestia daily published on Monday.
"We are planning to hold our first joint exercise this year," Trillo said referring to the agreement achieved at last week's talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
Trillo stressed that the ministers reached several other agreements that will scale up bilateral military cooperation between Moscow and Madrid. In particular, the agreements envisage a possibility to use Russian military transport planes for relocation of Spanish forces and equipment during international operations, joint development of new armament and communication systems, and mutual visits of Russian and Spanish warships to each other's ports.
"Me and Minister Ivanov also agreed to set up a joint commission on cooperation between the Armed Forces. We had never had such an agreement with anybody else but the United States," Trillo stressed.
Spain abandoned conscription for the first time in 2004, and now its Armed Forces are manned entirely by volunteers, he noted.
The minister also spoke about servicemen's housing, medical and social security system in Spain, including compensations to relatives of servicemen killed on duty.