Thursday, 16 January 2014 - 10:17
Finland agrees to buy Dutch Leopard tanks
The Netherlands has signed an agreement to sell 100 Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks to Finland, the Dutch Ministry of Defense said.
Leopard / Wikipedia
In a letter to the parliament, Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said that Finnish Defense Minister Carl Haglund is visiting the Netherlands next week to finalize the sale, United Press International reported.
The defense ministry said that the sale of the tanks includes training materials, spare parts, special tools, training ammunition and personnel training.
The purchase price and other details of the agreement were not disclosed.
The banks will be delivered batches to Finland with the final batch will be handed over in 2019.
The Dutch army has not been using the Leopard tanks since 2011. The tanks were mothballed due to budget cuts. In 2012, Dutch parliament blocked a deal to sell 80% of those tanks to Indonesia for about €200 million due to concerns about the human rights situation in Indonesia.