Morocco to Upgrade F-16 Fleet Domestically, Boosting Military Industry

This is a transfer of cutting-edge technology, that of the modernization of 23 F-16Bs to reach the Viper standard and which will be entirely carried out by Moroccans in Morocco. But first, Moroccan engineers will travel to the USA to participate in the transformation of an F16B to the Viper standard.

After which, the Moroccan military, sufficiently equipped, will proceed to the transformation of 22 aircraft at the "Royal Air Force Schools Base and the Royal Air School, Marrakech", reports Aujourd’hui Le Maroc.
This operation, which will take place in the wake of the visit to Rabat of the number one of the Pentagon, marks a turning point in military cooperation between the two countries, indicates the same source, adding that it is surrounded by great confidentiality, when we know that few countries today obtain such an agreement from the US Department of Defense.

The visit of the US Secretary of Defense was notably marked by the signing of an agreement called the "Roadmap for Defense Cooperation 2020-2030 between the Kingdom of Morocco and the United States of America", by Abdellatif Loudiyi, Minister Delegate in charge of National Defense Administration, and Mark Esper, in the presence in particular of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Residing Abroad, Nasser Bourita, and several diplomatic and military personalities from both countries.

This signature, recalled the head of Moroccan diplomacy, comes after the other, very old, of the Treaty of Friendship and Peace, which took place in 1786, between Sultan Mohammed III, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and which laid the first framework for relations between the Kingdom of Morocco and the United States of America.