July 25 - On a short official visit to Italy, the Chilean Minister of Defense, Jorge Burgos, signed a new Defense Cooperation agreement with Italian Minister Roberta Pinotti. The Agreement is broader than the previous one signed between both Governments.
In the ceremony, Minister Burgos was accompanied by Ambassador Fernando Ayala and the Vice-Minister of Defense, Marcos Robledo.
The purpose of this Agreement is to encourage, facilitate and develop Defense cooperation through relations between their respective Ministries of Defense and Armed Forces.
Both Ministers Pinotti and Burgos highlighted that this agreement provides a Government-to-Government framework between the Armed Forces of both countries, with a special emphasis on links between the defense material industry and the branches of the Armed Forces.
The Minister of Defense, Jorge Burgos, underlined Chile{s special interest in sharing the experience of Italy with respect to Peace Operations and learn in detail how they addressed the joint tasks of the Armed Forces in times of piece and crisis.
The Agreement includes various cooperation areas such as security policies and defense; research and development, logistics support and procurement of goods and services for defense; humanitarian and peacekeeping operations; armed forces organizations, flow charts and equipment related to military units, personnel management; organization and employment of Armed Forces; environmental issues and pollution caused by military activities; military education and training; military health; humanitarian demining; Civil-military cooperation in the event of natural disasters; Military Industry and Military Justice and the Law of Armed Conflict and Peace Operations.
It also includes the supply of materials which could be implemented through direct operations between States ore through private services authorized by the respective Governments.