Colombia said today it planned to buy up to 46 tanks from Spain as part of President Alvaro Uribe's military campaign to root out illegal armed groups fighting in the country's long-running war.
Defense Minister Mr Jorge Alberto Uribe told a news conference the French-made AMX-30 tanks would cost $6 million and would guard roads, highways and other key infrastructure to deter sabotage by leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries.
There are an estimated 40,000 illegal fighters fanned across Colombia's Andes mountains and thick jungles fighting a four-decade war that claims thousands of lives every year.
The tanks are due to arrive later this year.
Defense Minister Uribe, who is not related to the president, denied a report by Colombian Cambio magazine on Sunday that the government was planning to deploy the tanks along the volatile border with Venezuela.
"The tanks are exclusively for domestic use. Colombia has never waged nor will it ever wage a warlike act against one of its neighbors," the minister told reporters.
In Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, Foreign Minister Mr Jesus Perez, played down the purchase.
"We don't see it as a sign of conflict. Probably they are normal purchases," Mr Perez told a news conference.
Relations between Colombia and Venezuela have come under strain in recent years amid accusations by Colombian and US officials that leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez supports and gives refuge to Marxist rebels.