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From The Times
January 14, 2006

Spain defies US over arms sales

By Tim Reid
A row erupted between the US and Spain yesterday after Washington tried to block Madrid from selling military aircraft to the left-wing Government of President Chávez of Venezuela. Spain reacted with defiance, saying that the $2 billion (£1.2 billion) deal for military aircraft, which contain US technology, would go ahead.

The dispute will further sour relations already damaged by the decision of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister, to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq as soon as he took power in April 2004.

President Chávez, an ally of Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, has begun a military spending spree that concerns Washington and has courted Tehran in recent months.

The row threatened to overshadow a visit to Washington by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, which had been seen as a first step to mending German-US relations after German opposition to the Iraq war.

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