The State Department indicated today that it had no advance knowledge that Egypt and China would sign a military treaty which President Anwar Sadat revealed this morning. Sadat announced the arms deal with China in a speech celebrating the fourth anniversary of the reopening of the Suez Canal, but gave no details. The State Department’s chief spokesman, Hodding Carter, said in reply to questions, that with the Soviet Union having cut off arms support to Egypt, “Egypt looked to a number of nations for assistance, including China.”
However, he said, to his knowledge, Egypt did not inform the U.S. of its pact with China. But “we had conversations with a number of nations regarding the Camp David process and support for Egypt and Israel,” Carter said. He would not name the countries.
Asked about the possibility of a joint Egyptian-American venture in arms manufacture, Carter said no discussions have been held on e-government-to-government level of a consortium to produce weapons. He added, however, that private U.S. corporations have made proposals for co-production with Egypt. Such proposals would be subject to U.S. munitions control licensing. There was speculation in Calro that the arms deal included Chinese-made MIGs.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
