Mofaz. 'We will meet obligations'
Photo: Hanan Greenberg
'Israel to return to combat plane project'
In Pentagon meeting, Mofaz and Rumsfeld agree to end crisis between Israel, U.S. on Israel-China arms deal
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met Friday evening in the Pentagon with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The meeting was intended to symbolize the end of the "Chinese Crisis" and the return of the defense relationship between the countries to its previous condition through bilateral cooperation, including a resuming of Israel's involvement in the JSF future combat aircraft project.
"All the controversial issues have been removed. Israel continues to take part in the project as an evaluated participant, and the U.S. has repeated its commitment to sell the aircraft to Israel," Mofaz told Israeli reporters at the end of the meeting.
Regarding Israel's commitments to the Americans, Mofaz made it clear that "We will meet them. Some of them are linked to the tightening of supervision on the technological-defense export and some to the reorganization of the different systems."
The issue of the Israeli request to sell spare parts of AF16 aircrafts to Venezuela was not discussed in the meeting and was defined by Mofaz as "Not a big deal."
A joint statement by the U.S. Defense Department and the Israeli Ministry of Defense said that the two officials reviewed the defense relationship between the United States and Israel on all its aspects.
The statement added that the U.S. had repeated its fundamental commitment to Israel's security and wellbeing, including maintaining its high quality military advantage.
The two parties reconfirmed their decision to continue developing the defense relationship between the two offices and defense establishments, including on issues related to the global war on terror and the efforts to prevent the distribution of mass destruction weapons, the statement concluded.
