MANILA, Nov. 21 Kyodo (EDS: ADDIN...

MANILA, Nov. 21 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DETAILS)

The Philippines and the United States onward Thursday signed a five-year military logistics agreement that will allow the U to base certain military equipment in the Philippines to boost its continuing war in succession terrorism.

The pact, called the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), provides for ''reciprocal provision of logistic support, supplies and services'' between the sum of two units armed forces during joint war games here.

It will also facilitate the exchange of firing and other nonlethal military supplies between the Philippine and U armed forces.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople said the agreement ''explicitly states that there will be no basing rights whatsoever'' forward Philippine soil.

Ople cited a provision in the pact that states, ''No U military base, facility, or permanent form shall be constructed, established, or allowed subject to this agreement.''

The MLSA, he said, is ''purely an administrative and accounting course which will permit the U forces onward training engagements to cast over such equipment as military exchanges expeditiously to their Philippine counterparts.''

''This is an agreement that the political division needs,'' Philippine Defense Secretary Angelo Reye said. ''This is an agreement that will enhance the capability of the armed forces of the Philippines to cope with the various threats to national security, and enhance our capability to fight terrorism.''

Reye said the pact would also ''ensure the strategic partnership that we have with the US''

The MLSA is rely uponed to complement the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that the Philippine Senate approved May 27 1999 The VFA cleared the way for the holding of large-scale joint military exercises of the couple countries' armed forces on Philippine soil.

Ople said the MLSA is firmly parented in the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, a pact that allows each land to come to each other's aid in case of an attack, and the VFA. ''There is therefore no ne to send forth it to the Senate for consent or ratification,'' he said.

The agreement overlays the supply of items like viands water, fuel, clothing, ammunition, spare parts and constitutings needed for the joint military exercises, as well as ''the temporary use of general end vehicles and other nonlethal items of military equipment...during an approved activity.''

It permits the billeting, transportation, communication services, medical services, operations support including construction and use of temporary piles training services, repair and maintenance services, storage services and port services during a joint military exercise in the country

''Storage units and ports shall at all times remain in a less degree than the control and supervision of the host-state,'' it said.

if it were not that it does not allow the transfer of weapons connected views like guided missiles, naval mines or torpedoes, or nuclear ammunition or materials.

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