ISRAEL: US secretary of defence arrives in Israel, meeting Israeli counterpart Peretz

Record ID: 401351

  • Title: ISRAEL: US secretary of defence arrives in Israel, meeting Israeli counterpart Peretz
  • Date: 20th April 2007
  • Summary: (BN13) TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (APRIL 18, 2007) (REUTERS) WIDE OF GATES AND PERETZ ENTERING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) US SECRETARY OF DEFENCE ROBERT GATES SAYING "General Petraus warned early on that as the Baghdad security plan began to take hold in Baghdad that the terrorist, that al Qaeda, that the insurgency and others would attempt to increase the violence in o
  • Embargoed: 5th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA7EWUDBITVIF77EY515M4ZAMHK
  • Story Text: U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates visited Israel on Wednesday (April 18) to burnish a strategic alliance in the face of Iran's nuclear programme and lay to rest spats over Israeli arms sales to China dating back seven years.
    The last Pentagon chief to come to Israel, which gets more than $2 billion (USD) in annual U.S. defence aid, was William Cohen in 1999 -- shortly before Washington quashed a lucrative Israeli radar deal with China, citing concern for the safety of Taiwan.
    More recently, Israel reshuffled senior Defence Ministry officials and pledged to tighten arms-export regulations after Pentagon officials complained about Israel's maintenance work on combat drones that it had provided to the Asian superpower.
    He said he had briefed Peretz on the Iraqi insurgency, Syria and Iran, whose nuclear programme is regarded by both the United States and Israel as a bid to build bombs. Tehran denies it.
    "General Petraus warned early on that as the Baghdad security plan began to take hold in Baghdad that the terrorist, that al Qaeda, that the insurgency and others would attempt to increase the violence in order to make the plan a failure or to make the people of Iraq believe the plan is a failure. So I think we have anticipated -- obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point. These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They are killing their countrymen. And I think it is important to highlight their efforts to try and disrupt the process of reconciliation, to try and prove the Baghdad security plan a failure, and we intend to persist to show that it is not," Gates told reporters when asked about the rising death toll in Iraq as the Baghdad plan takes affect.
    Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, has hinted it could take pre-emptive military action against Iran -- something that would likely require U.S. acquiescence but could risk alienating America's Arab allies.
    Gates, who is scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday (April 19), voiced confidence in U.N. Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions to strip Iran of technologies with bomb-making potential. Peretz was more circumspect.
    A senior Peretz aide said that the Jewish state saw symbolic as well as strategic value to Gates's two-day visit. The U.S. secretary of state visited Jordan and Egypt earlier this week.
    The New York Times reported this month that Israeli objections had stalled a major sale of U.S. weaponry to Saudi Arabia and other friendly Gulf states.
    The United States is keen to reassure Sunni Arab allies in the Middle East, anxious that Shi'ite-dominated Iran is gaining influence in the region, that Washington will stand by them.
    Asked on the Saudi issue, Peretz said the United States is committed to preserving Israel's regional military superiority.
    "The need to preserve the IDF's qualitative edge in the face of all the existing threats in the Middle East is a need which receives, first and foremost, all of the necessary backing from the united and the secretary of defence," Peretz said.
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