U.S., Spain OK Defense Accord Covering Air Bases, Naval Facility

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Spanish Foreign Minister Francisco Fernandez-Ordonez agreed Wednesday on a new defense treaty that will permit the United States to maintain two air bases and a naval facility in Spain for the next eight years.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said that for the first time since U.S. bases were established in Spain in 1953, the agreement does not require any American payments to Madrid for rights to use the Moron and Zaragoza air bases and the Rota naval base. Rota, a major base for U.S. operations in the Mediterranean, is by far the most important of the three facilities.

Spanish officials said the Madrid government decided not to ask the U.S. military for economic aid because it wanted to emphasize that the base agreement was a pact between equal partners.

No Rent--Officially

Officially, the United States does not pay rent for any of its overseas bases, but it frequently makes aid payments that amount to the same thing.

Redman said Shultz and Fernandez-Ordonez reached agreement on a few final points, although most of the work had been completed earlier by lower-level negotiators.

The new pact will not have to be renegotiated until the end of 1996. Previously, U.S.-Spain base agreements had to be renewed every five years.

Last January, Spain ordered the removal of U.S. F-16 warplanes from the Torrejon air base on the outskirts of Madrid. The Spanish government said it would not renew the agreement for any of the bases unless the F-16s were removed.

At the time, the decision angered U.S. officials, who complained that Spain was not ready to bear its fair share of the burden of Western defenses. However, the dispute was resolved when Italy agreed to accept the aircraft.

Nuclear Dispute Avoided

Redman said the F-16 issue did not affect the latest negotiations, in which Shultz and Fernandez-Ordonez sidestepped a dispute over nuclear weapons. Spain refuses to have such weapons stationed in its territory during peacetime.

However, Redman said the new agreement “was resolved in a way that is consistent with our worldwide policy” of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on naval vessels.

In effect, Washington acknowledged Spain’s policy against nuclear weapons and Madrid agreed not to insist on knowing whether U.S. military vessels are nuclear-armed or not.

“There will be no effect on our operations,” Redman said.