Saudis confident they will get top jets

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 6

Saudis confident they will get top jets

NZPA-Reuter Washington Saudi Arabia insisted on the United States selling it more advanced warplanes because its security needs had changed significantly in the last two years, Saudi officials said yesterday. They said the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan, the revolutionary turmoil in Iran and what they termed Israeli obstinacy in the Middle East peace. talks had created dangerous risks for Saudi Arabia and its Arab friends.

They were giving the Saudi view after a row broke out in Washington over Riyadh’s request, to buy extra fuel tanks and-milltiple ejection bomb racks for the McDonnell Douglas Fl 5 jet fighters it had ordered. The Saudi Government has already reacted sharply to a letter signed by 68 senators urging President Carter

to refuse the sale. It accused the United States of putting Israel ahead of its real interests in the Middle East and pointedly saying it could buy weapons elsewhere.

the State Department, caught between the Saudi demands and Congressional resistance, has tried to play down the issue. A ' State Department spokesman said the Carter Administration had not decided on the. Saudi request, that Riyadh had set no deadline for the sale. Asked about Saudi reaction to the senators’ letter, he replied: "We read a lot of speeches. We see a lot of statements, we respond to some but not to others.” . The Saudi officials denied they were using new weapons requests to test American friendship in a Presidential'. election year and to counter, strong pro-Israeli sentiment in Congress.

They also denied Saudi Arabia was pushing for the same weapons the United States was willing to sell Israel and Egypt. One official said Saudi Arabia needed the better weaponry to defend its borders and vital oilfields from attack. "We just can’t explain to ourselves why we should buy this plane stripped of important features,” he said. "In Saudi Arabia we are buying the best telephone system, the best television system — we want to go first class.” The Saudi Defence Minister, (Prince Sultan Abdulaziz) denounced Congress for trying to block the sale. “Our reply to this is that the kingdom will never ask for a weapon and be refused,” he told officers graduating from the staff college at Riyadh.