U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that selling military technology to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors will help secure Iraq and promote stability in the Gulf region.
"We are helping to strengthen the defensive capabilities of our partners and we plan to initiate discussions with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states on a proposed package of military technologies that will help support their ability to secure peace and stability in the Gulf region," Rice said in a statement.
"To support our continued diplomatic engagement in the region, we are forging new assistance agreements with the Gulf States, Israel and Egypt," the top U.S. diplomat said ahead of a Middle East trip with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Rice made the remarks a day after U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad accused U.S. ally Saudi Arabia of undermining efforts to stabilize Iraq.
Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told CNN that "Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries are not doing all they can to help us in Iraq."
"At times, some of them are not only not helping, but they are doing things that is undermining the effort to make progress," Khalilzad added.
The United States will announce this week a series of arms deals worth at least 20 billion U.S. dollars to Saudi Arabia and five other oil-rich Persian Gulf states as well as new 10-year military aid packages to Israel and Egypt, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
The arms deals, which include the sales of a variety of sophisticated weaponry, would be the largest negotiated by the Bush administration.
The military assistance agreements would provide 30 billion dollars in new U.S. aid to Israel and 13 billion to Eypt over 10 years.
The two figures represent significant increases in military support, the newspaper quoted unidentified U.S. officials as reporting.
Rice and Gates will kick off their four-day visit to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian territories later in the day.
Source: Xinhua
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