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After a three-year wait, France has finally authorized the United Arab Emirates to sell 30 Mirage 2000-9E aircraft to Morocco. «Bad news for Spain», laments the Spanish daily La Razon. The sale benefited from the recent rapprochement between Rabat and Paris.
Indeed, Abu Dhabi had expressed its willingness to offer 30 Mirage 2000-9E aircraft to Morocco, following the conclusion, in December 2021, of a mega order for 80 Rafale F4 aircraft armed with Mica NG air-to-air missiles and Black Shaheen cruise missiles, worth over 16 billion euros. However, at that time, France declined to greenlight the Emirati offer for the Royal Moroccan Air Force (RMAF).
Military cooperation between Morocco and the UAE is governed by an agreement, signed in May 2006, covering training, exchanges of visits, and operational, technical and material support. In 2014, they extended this partnership framework to include research in military industries and technical aspects, as well as contributions to the transfer of technology and techniques.
For the record, in 2014, Rabat had provided «operational and intelligence military support» to Abu Dhabi in its war against «ISIS», including the provision of six F-16 aircraft, one of which crashed in Yemen in 2015 during the war against the Houthis.
Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita held talks with his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, in Paris on April 9.
