WASHINGTON: The United States and the United Arab Emirates hope to have aninitial agreement on the sale of F-35 stealth fighter jets to the Gulfstate in place by December, as the Trump administration studies how tostructure a deal without running afoul of Israel.
Sources close to the negotiations said the goal is to have a letter ofagreement in place in time for UAE National Day celebrated on Dec. 2.
Any deal must satisfy decades of agreement with Israel that states any U.S.weapons sold to the region must not impair Israel’s “qualitative militaryedge,” guaranteeing U.S. weapons furnished to Israel are “superior incapability” to those sold to its neighbors.
With that in mind Washington is studying ways to make the Lockheed MartinCorp F-35 more visible to Israeli radar systems, two sources said. Reuterscould not determine if this would be done by changing the jet or providingIsrael with better radar, among other possibilities.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was due to meet his U.S. counterpartMark Esper in Washington on Tuesday.
The UAE embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request forcomment. The White House declined to comment.
A Pentagon spokeswoman told Reuters, “as a matter of policy, the UnitedStates does not confirm or comment on proposed defense sales or transfersuntil they are formally notified to Congress.”
Once a letter of agreement is signed, a fine may be levied against anyparty that terminates the deal. Several political and regulatory hurdlesmust be cleared before the sale may be completed and Capitol Hill aidescautioned a deal may not be possible this year.
Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, told reporters in Augustthat in general, the United States aims to complete a letter of agreementfor new F-35 sales in about six months.
Because of the qualitative military edge restriction, the LockheedMartin-made F-35 has been denied to Arab states, while Israel has about 24jets.
Read Top Stories
The United Arab Emirates, one of Washington’s closest Middle East allies,has long expressed interest in acquiring the stealthy jets and was promiseda chance to buy them in a side deal made when they agreed to normalizerelations with Israel.
Sources familiar with the negotiations said a working idea was for Israeliair defenses to be able to detect the UAE F-35s with technology thateffectively defeats the stealth capabilities of the jets.
F-35 fighter jets sold to the United Arab Emirates could also be built in away that ensures the same planes owned by Israel outperform any others soldin the region, defense experts say.
Washington already demands that any F-35 sold to foreign governments cannotmatch the performance of U.S. jets, said both a congressional staffer and asource familiar with past sales.
The F-35’s technical sophistication is tied to its mission systems andprocessing power and “it’s the computing power that allows you to sell ahigher tech jet to Israel than to the UAE,” said Doug Birkey, executivedirector of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Washington.
“When foreign pilots are in training in the U.S. they type a code into auser interface as they board the jet, the code will pull a different jetfor each pilot based on legal permissions,” Birkey said.
Either way, actual delivery of new jets is years away. Poland, the mostrecent F-35 customer, purchased 32 of the jets in January, but will notreceive its first delivery until 2024.
Courtesy: (Yenisafak)
