France and four Arab countries, including Egypt, signed an agreement today providing for intensive military cooperation and technical assistance in manufacturing a variety of planes, helicopters, missiles and other arms. The agreement was signed by the French Defense Minister Yvon Bourges and the Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel Ghanni el Gammassi representing the newly created Industrial Arab Organization (IAO).
The agreement provides for French technical expertise and know-how and Egyptian labor. Four Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, the Federation of Arab Emirates, Qatar and Egypt provided over one billion dollars to finance the project. The IAO was set up in 1975 to provide the Arab states with their own arms industry.
Immediately after the ceremony, the Arab delegation, which included representatives of the four countries, met with President Valery Giscard d’Estaing at the Elysee Palace. Arab spokesmen said after the meeting that the agreement “is only the start of a long process of intensive cooperation.”
One of the corporation’s first projects is to assemble in Egypt the Alpha jet training planes and the British-made “Lynx” helicopters. The Alpha jet can be equipped with a gun and missiles and serve for tactical support. It was developed jointly by France and West Germany.
The electronic equipment for the planes will be supplied by a plant to be built in Saudi Arabia at Jedda with the help of a French company, Thomson-CSF. The Alpha jet is being built by the Dassault Co., which also manufactures the Mirage F-I in which Egypt is interested. The Saudis are also interested in the latest Mirage prototype, the Mirage-2000, described as the equivalent of the American F-15.
Egypt has already bought in France Mirages, Gazelle helicopters and a variety of missiles and other weapons. Gammassi is due to visit various industrial plants tomorrow and possibly start negotiating on new joint projects. (By Edwin Eytan)
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