Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci signed a memorandum of understanding Monday that boosts Israel’s status to the equivalent of a NATO ally of the United States.
The agreement, signed at the Pentagon at the beginning of Rabin’s three-day visit here, provides for the United States and Israel to carry out joint military research and development programs. It also allows Israel to bid on military sales to the Pentagon on the same basis as NATO members.
Israel joins a select group of five major non-NATO allies of the United States that also comprises Australia, Egypt, Japan and South Korea.
The memorandum takes on new importance in the wake of Israel’s agreement, under pressure from the United States, to cancel development of the Lavi jet fighter. The new pact is expected to help save many of the Israel Aircraft Industry jobs lost by the cancellation.
Pentagon sources noted that the memorandum is the latest in a series of cooperation agreements with Israel since the 1970s, including the four-year-old memorandum on strategic cooperation.
After the signing Monday, Rabin and Carlucci held a meeting that included a working lunch. Rabin also had separate meetings with the civilian secretaries of the military branches as well as with Gen. Colin Powell, President Reagan’s national security adviser; Deputy Secretary of State John Whitehead; and former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.
Rabin also has scheduled a series of meetings with individual members of Congress and with officials of General Dynamics Corp., manufacturer of the F-16 jet fighter, which Israel agreed to substitute for the Lavi.
The defense minister will address the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, on Wednesday morning before visiting the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on his way back to Israel.
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