Madrid, June 6 (RHC)-- Spain says it has approved an agreement authorizing the permanent military presence of the United Sates at a southern Spanish base for deployment on missions to Africa. Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told a press conference in Madrid that the government agreed to permanently extend the 1988 military accord under which the U.S. Marines intervention force has been based at Moron de la Frontera in the southern province of Seville.

"The deployment at the Moron base will be made permanent with a force of 2,200 military personnel and 500 civilian staff plus 26 aircraft," Saenz de Santamaria stated. The base will be capable of hosting temporary extra deployments of up to 800 more personnel as well as 14 more jets, the Spanish official added. Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.

The U.S. force was first stationed at the Moron base in April 2013 in the wake of a September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi. Currently, some 800 U.S. troops are stationed at the Spanish base.