Israel backs U.S. arms sale to Saudis

By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - In a break from historic Israeli opposition to U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday his country understands Washington's plan to supply state-of-the-art weapons to Riyadh as a counterweight to Iranian influence.

The United States, knowing that Israel is sensitive about such arms sales, is also offering a sharp increase in defense aid to Israel and has assured the Jewish state it will retain a fighting edge over other countries in the region, he added.

"We understand the need of the United States to support the Arab moderate states and there is a need for a united front between the U.S. and us regarding Iran," Olmert told a weekly Cabinet meeting.

The rare agreement reflects shared U.S. and Israeli concern over the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

The proposed arms deal would include advanced weaponry and air systems that would greatly enhance the striking ability of Saudi warplanes, alarming the Israeli right. One leading hard-liner warned that Saudi Arabia, although not belligerent now, could be taken over by extremists.

Israel's southern tip is 10 miles from Saudi Arabia across the Gulf of Aqaba.

The proposed package comes with a serious sweetener for Israel: a 25 percent rise in U.S. military aid, from an annual $2.4 billion at present to $3 billion a year and guaranteed for 10 years.

Olmert said the increase in military aid to Israel would guarantee its strategic superiority, irrespective of upgrades to Arab forces in the region. Olmert said the rise was pledged by President Bush during his visit to Washington last year and finalized in White House talks in June.

"In my last meeting with him, we decided that the assistance would be $30 billion for 10 years, about $3 billion a a year. This is more than a 25 percent increase ... and it is very significant for the safety of Israel," Olmert said.

The U.S. has long-standing commitments to Israel and to Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel. At the same time, the U.S. is seeking to strengthen other moderate Mideast allies, largely as a counterweight to Iran's growing influence.

The United States and Israel accuse Iran of developing nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran denies. Iran, whose leader has repeatedly called for Israel to be to wiped off the map, is viewed by Israel as its main enemy. Shiite Muslim Iran also worries the Saudis and other Sunni-led Arab allies of the United States.

The Haaretz daily on Sunday cited U.S. officials saying Saudi Arabia has asked that Congress be notified in advance of the planned sale, while the Pentagon is asking the Saudis to accept restrictions on the range, size and location of the satellite-guided bombs, including a commitment not to store the weapons near Israeli territory.

Although the Israeli right voiced worries about the latest plan, it stopped short of outright calls to block it.

"I am very concerned," Yuval Steinitz, a key hawk on parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told The Associated Press. "I can understand the need to support moderate states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but on the other hand we have to remember that governments can be toppled, as in Iran."

Senior administration officials said Friday that Bush would seek congressional approval for additional military aid to Israel and also to Egypt, which currently gets $1.3 billion a year.

The officials said before beginning her Mideast tour on Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would announce those proposals, along with the plan to sell at least $5 billion in sophisticated weapons to Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf states.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects in final graf that Rice trip begins, sted ends, on Monday; minor EDITS throughout)

Putin Suspends Arms Pact Over Missile Dispute

MOSCOW, April 26 — President Vladimir V. Putin said today that Russia would suspend its compliance with a treaty on conventional arms in Europe that was forged at the end of the cold war.

Instead, Mr. Putin said, the Kremlin would use its future compliance with the treaty as a bargaining point in the dispute with United States over American proposals to install missile defenses in Europe.

Mr. Putin’s announcement, made in his annual address to Parliament, underscored the Kremlin’s anger at the United States for proposing a new missile-defense system, which the Bush administration insists is meant to counter potential threats from North Korea and Iran.

It also demonstrated Russia’s lingering frustrations with the treaties negotiated by the Kremlin in the 1990s, when Russia, still staggering through its post-Soviet woes, was much weaker and less assertive on the world stage than today.

Though the step by Mr. Putin was an incremental one, it was highly symbolic. The agreement in question, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, known by the initials C.F.E., was signed in 1990 by the N.A.T.O. nations and the nations of the former Warsaw Pact, including Russia. It required the reduction and relocation of much of the main battle equipment then located along the former east-west dividing line, including tanks, artillery pieces, armored vehicles and attack aircraft. It also established an inspection regime.

Under the treaty, more than 50,000 pieces of military equipment were converted or destroyed by 1995. With its initial ambitions largely achieved, it was renegotiated in 1999, adding a requirement that Russia withdraw its forces from Georgia and Moldova, two former Soviet republics where tensions and intrigue with Moscow run high.

Russia has not withdrawn its troops, and the revised treaty has not been ratified by most of the signatory nations, including the United States, which has withheld ratification until the Kremlin complies with the troop-withdrawal commitments.

Though in many ways the treaty had already stalled, it remained a powerful diplomatic marker, a central element in the group of agreements that defused the threat of war in Europe as communism collapsed.

Mr. Putin abruptly called into question the treaty’s future today, announcing a moratorium on compliance and seizing two contentious issues, the proposed American missile-defense system and the West’s reluctance to ratify the latest treaty. Mr. Putin pointedly did not use any of the conciliatory language he sometimes inserts in his speeches to leaven his criticisms of the United States.

He did not define specifically what he meant by a moratorium. But he suggested that Russia might withdraw completely from the treaty if he is not satisfied with the results of negotiations with the N.A.T.O.-Russia Council, an organization created in 2002 to increase cooperation between the former enemies.

“I propose discussing this problem,” he said, “and should there be no progress in the negotiations, to look at the possibility of ceasing our commitments under the C.F.E. treaty.”

That remark drew the loudest applause of the day from Russia’s largely compliant parliament, which for the most part sat quietly during Mr. Putin’s 70-minute speech. It also drew a swift reaction from N.A.T.O.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the organization’s secretary-general, expressed continued support for the treaty, and demanded clarification from Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.

“I expect Foreign Minister Lavrov to explain the words of his President,” Mr. de Hoop Scheffer told news agencies.

The Russian president’s remarks coincided with the latest effort by the Bush administration to promote its missile-defense proposal, which would include building an interceptor rocket base in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.

Russia has said that the missile defense plans could upset the balance of forces in Europe, and represent an escalation that could lead to a new cold war.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice dismissed those Russian concerns in an appearance today in Oslo, calling them “purely ludicrous.”

But even as she spoke, Mr. Putin was stepping up the dispute, part of a day in which he also chided the West for what he called meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs in the guise of democracy-promotion efforts.

Mr. Putin also restated to the Parliament his intention to leave office next year, at the end of his second four-year term. The Russian constitution limits each president to a maximum of two terms, but there have been calls by politicians loyal to Mr. Putin to set the rule aside and remain in office, and speculation has never fully subsided that he might.

But Mr. Putin was clear about his intentions today, saying that the annual address was his last. “In the spring of next year, my duties end, and the next state-of-the-nation speech will be delivered by a different head of state,” he said.