The Pentagon wants a new training ground in the Atlantic

This summer, four American fifth-generation F-22 Raptor fighters will begin training flights at a new air force training ground that the United States, in agreement with the Portuguese authorities, is creating on the Azores archipelago in the mid-Atlantic. Then they will be joined by eight more such machines.

In the archipelago, preparations are in full swing to receive the latest fighter jets at the Lajes air force base on the island of Teixeira, leased by the US Air Force. The Americans settled in the Azores in 1943, at the height of World War II, in which Portugal remained neutral. In 1951, the United States signed the first treaty with Portuguese dictator Salazar, allowing them to use the Lajes Air Force Base and maintain a permanent military presence there. In 1983, the agreement was revised, and since then Lisbon has received about $200 million annually from Washington in the form of military aid and cash for renting the base. At the Lajes base there are more than a thousand military personnel and the same number of civilian specialists from the United States. Now Lajes serves as a bridge for the transfer of equipment and military equipment from the United States to Afghanistan and Iraq.

In February 2008, Portuguese Defense Minister Severiano Teixeira admitted for the first time the fact of “informal contacts with the United States” about expanding the lease agreement for the Lajes base. Back in 2007, the United States expressed a desire to obtain a huge training ground north of the Azores for training flights of the latest aircraft and launches of supersonic missiles. The Pentagon requested an area of ​​about 80 thousand square meters for this purpose. miles. “The US is already abusing the use of the Lajes base in violation of the existing lease agreement. Expanding the treaty will only legitimize this practice,” retired Portuguese general Pesarat Correio told Vremya Novostei. In his opinion, “the financial benefits from increasing the US presence in the Azores do not compensate for Portugal’s increased dependence on the Americans.”

Alexander ZDITOVETSKY, Lisbon