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US clears sale of Israeli Phalcon radars to India
By Vasantha Arora

Washington, August 12
The USA has confirmed that it has given Israel the green signal to sell India the Phalcon airborne warning and control system (AWACS) worth nearly $1 billion.

Deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said at his regular noon briefing on Monday: “The USA has informed the governments of Israel and India that we have no objection to the Israeli transfer of the Phalcon system to India.”

Replying to questions, he said: “We’ve been discussing this potential sale with Israel for several years, and in the past we have expressed concern that heightened tensions between India and Pakistan made the transfer inadvisable.

“It was really an issue of timing, but we feel that recent developments in the South Asian region have eased some of those concerns and so that’s why we’ve informed the two governments that we have no objections to that transfer.”

The Phalcon is an Israeli-developed long-range radar warning and control system carried in a Russian Ilyushin-76 cargo plane and is similar to the AWACS airborne command and control system long in service in the U.S. Air Force.

Israel coordinates its military sales with the USA because of the close cooperation between the two nations’ military industries that often share technological know-how, Pentagon sources said.

Confirmation of the Bush administration’s consent for the sale came less than a week after an Indian defence delegation led by Defence Secretary Ajay Prasad left Washington after high-level talks.

Mr Prasad and his officials, who were here in connection with the meeting of the U.S.-India Defence Policy Group, met several Bush administration officials, including Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers.

India is also expecting the USA to give a go-ahead to buy the Arrow anti-missile system, which has been developed jointly by the USA and Israel. — IANS