Germany's Defence Ministry disputes sale of military weapons

Germany's Defence Ministry has disputed a newspaper report that it has put up for sale almost 1,000 tanks, dozens of warplanes and other military equipment just days before the German army prepares to enter the war in Afghanistan.

Bild newspaper publishes details today of an illustrated 46-page catalogue offering for sale almost 1,000 tanks, 54 Tornado warplanes and two submarines. Other items on offer include two destroyers, Mig-29 warplanes, "Howitzer" tank cannons and mortar-bomb launchers, according to the newspaper.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said yesterday that the Bild report "creates a false impression" about the "usual procedure" of offering to sell NATO partners military equipment being decommissioned by the German army. "This serves military inter-operability and prevents friendly nations obtaining new weapons, while Germany disposes of the same machine at great cost," said a spokesman.

Bild said the equipment in the catalogue, sent to 53 German embassies worldwide, is on offer to NATO governments as well as China, Nigeria and Egypt, a claim denied by the Defence Ministry.

"Naturally the appropriate laws as well as export guidelines were used by the government," the Defence Ministry spokesman said.

The newspaper reports that the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, angrily ordered the planned equipment sales to be put on hold. The government denies that the matter had caused friction between the Defence and Foreign Ministries.

News of the equipment sell-off is an embarrassing revelation for the government, coming just days after receiving the necessary parliamentary approval for a military deployment.

It is also another blow to the defence minister, Mr Rudolf Scharping, who came close to resigning last September. As he fought in parliament to send German troops to Macedonia, a magazine published authorised pictures of him frolicking in a Majorca swimming pool with his girlfriend, Countess Kristina Pilati, whose family owns a munitions company.

Mr Scharping said yesterday that the first German troops would be readied for deployment in the coming days.

But he said there is no fixed date as yet for deployment of the troops, primarily air transportation and medical evacuation teams.

Meanwhile four German "Shelter Now" workers held hostage for over three months by the Taliban were reunited with their families in Frankfurt yesterday.