Angola Counts On Russian Specialists To Help With Arms Maintenance - Defense Official

Angola Counts on Russian Specialists to Help With Arms Maintenance - Defense Official

Angola counts on Russian specialists to help with modernization and maintenance of weapons, the secretary of state for material resources and infrastructure of the Ministry of National Defense, Afonso Carlos Neto, told Sputnik

PATRIOT PARK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st July, 2019) Angola counts on Russian specialists to help with modernization and maintenance of weapons, the secretary of state for material resources and infrastructure of the Ministry of National Defense, Afonso Carlos Neto, told Sputnik.

"Our priority is organizing structures to effectively carry out maintenance of our military equipment. It's our key priority, maintenance and more specifically repairs; modernization [these] are our first priorities. In the future, we will see if we can develop for production, because we need to do these basic things first, and after we are consolidated, we can move to the next phase ... They [Russian specialists] will definitely participate because the technology for the weapons comes from Russia, so clearly we are counting on Russian specialists," Neto said on the sidelines of Army-2019 defense industry forum that took place in Russia last week.

Angolan President Joao Lourenco said in April, during his visit to Russia, that he was expecting the defense industry cooperation between Angola and Russia to continue and grow in the future. The president said that this cooperation could potentially include "creating facilities for manufacturing and assembling weapons" in Angola.

Angolan representatives met with major "equipment and military technologies producers [from Russia] and the countries Russia is partnering with" at Army-2019, Neto told Sputnik.

According to the official, Angola would be able to decide which equipment it is interested in based on its development programs.