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Australia eyes observer role for possible French Tiger deployment
Peter La Franchi / Canberra
Australia has confirmed that it has held initial discussions with France on a potential observer role if that nation proceeds with the deployment of its Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopters to Afghanistan.
The head of helicopter programmes in the Australian Defence Materiel Organisation Major General Tony Fraser says that “we have had discussions with France if it does deploy that we would be seeking to gain those lessons and perhaps visit and locate...
“ We will continue that cooperation with France to gain those lessons as best we can on Tiger operations in Afghanistan.”
He says that “my understanding is that France would be happy to receive that at the appropriate time. Like all of us, I think if you are up for an initial deployment you would be pretty much focused on that. At an appropriate time we will ensure that we get the information. France has offered to provide the information to us.”
France is yet to formally announce a deployment of Tiger but is considering its inclusion as early as midway through this year part of its continued expansion of forces in Afghanistan.
Fraser says Australia is taking a “wait to see” approach to the French decision making process before seeking to progress the observer issue further.
He says any deployment decision by that country “carries resourcing implications and lessons. We are cooperating closely through an army-to-army relationship. Our relationship with France on Tiger development in particular has been excellent. They are continuing to feed us information, as indeed we are to them, on aircraft development. We will wait to see where that goes. Clearly, there are lessons for us if that were to occur.”
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