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U.S. Gives Israel Green Light for India Arms Deal
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Dec. 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States has given Israel the green light to sell its Phalcon airborne radar warning system to India, the Israeli daily newspaper
Ha'aretz said Monday.
"The U.S. administration supports the sale of the Phalcon, Israel's airborne radar warning system, to India and has informed the defense ministry of a green light for the transaction," the daily said.
The Israeli Defense ministry, for its part, updated Washington on the particulars of the deal-in-the-works with the Indians, it added.
Israel wanted to sell three Phalcons to the Indian air force, in a deal valued at some one billion
dollars. The two countries are close to sealing the deal that was first discussed during a visit by an Indian delegation to Israel in August of this year.
Talks on the matter continued last month when the director-general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, Amos Yaron, visited New Delhi,
Ha'aretz reported.
The deal, coming amid renewed tension between India and regional rival Pakistan, involves three Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS).
Israel last year bowed to U.S. pressure to drop a similar deal to supply China with its advanced early warning system, which Washington feared could upset the strategic balance between China and Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.
China is now demanding that Israel either uphold the contract or pay Beijing $1.26 billion - $232 million that was paid as an advance on the first plane, $1 billion in compensation and $28 million in interest on the advance payment. Israel wants to reach a compromise with the Chinese so as to soften the blow to relations between the two countries, the daily reported.
The daily said foreign ministry officials feared, however, that going through with the deal with India could sour relations with China - an ally of Pakistan - even further.
Israel ranks fifth among the world's arms exporters.
India and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1992 and have a warming relationship, to the dismay of many Arab and Muslim countries.
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