On Tuesday, a senior Israeli official expressed his country’s readiness to cooperate in the future in the field of missile defense with Gulf states which lie close to Iran. “Israel could be open to future cooperation on missile defense with Gulf Arab states that share its concerns about Iran, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
Moshe Patil, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Missile Defense Organization, said that the time is not yet ripe to move forward with any of these agreements, and that Washington’s approval will be required as long as the development or financing of Israeli systems is done with American technology.
In response to a question during a conference call with journalists whether any of the systems might actually be introduced to Israel’s new partners in the Gulf, Patil said positively: “These are things that could happen, perhaps in the future,” according to Reuters.
“From an engineering point of view, of course there are many advantages, information that can be shared like sensors that can be deployed in both countries because we have the same enemies,” he said.
This came during a press conference to announce what Patil said is a successful test of a multi-level missile defense system that can hit targets flying at different altitudes such as cruise missiles or ballistic missiles.
Last September, the UAE and Bahrain signed two agreements to normalize relations with Israel, and weeks later Sudan, and then Morocco, announced the normalization of relations with Israel. All efforts were mediated by the U.S.
Israel has developed various air defense systems with U.S. assistance in recent years, according to reports that excluded cooperation with the Gulf countries in the field of missile defense.
