Bahrain: Defence deal with UK

The UK and Bahrain have signed a defence deal which will see Manama pay for a major expansion of Britain’s naval facilities in the Gulf. The base is expected to cost around £15m ($23.5m), and has been widely billed as the first permanent British base in the region since 1971, when Britain withdrew all forces east of Suez. “The facilities that we have used in Mina Al-Salman have been fairly poor, temporary facilities,” UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond – who signed the agreement on the sidelines of the International Institute for Security Studies’ Manama Dialogue along with Bahrain’s foreign minister Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa – told the BBC.