Russia
has asked France
to allow the deployment of two Ilyushin Il-38 naval reconnaissance planes at a
French base in Djibouti
to facilitate its anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden,
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Wednesday.
“We have asked France
to host two reconnaissance planes at its air base in Djibouti
in addition to three French planes deployed there,” Serdyukov said after a
meeting of the Russian-French Security Cooperation Council in Paris.
The Il-38 May is a Soviet-era maritime patrol aircraft still
in service with the Russian Navy.
The plane can fly at a maximum speed of 650 km/h. It has a
range of 9,500 km and service ceiling of 10,000 meters.
Russian warships have successfully escorted more than 130
commercial vessels from various countries through pirate-infested waters off
the Somali coast since 2008, when Russia
joined the international anti-piracy mission in the region.
Task forces from the Russian Navy, usually led by Udaloy
class destroyers, operate in the area on a rotating basis.
However, the Russian military believes that the deployment
of reconnaissance planes in the region would significantly improve the
effectiveness of its anti-piracy missions.
France
maintains its largest foreign military base in its former colony located at the
juncture of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The Djibouti
base hosts several thousand French military personnel, as well as a number of
military aircraft.
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