BICOM

Israel’s defence minister has suggested that agreement over a new US defence aid package to Israel will be concluded before November’s US elections.

Yesterday, Avigdor Lieberman, who is on his first official visit to the United States as defence minister, told Army Radio: “We need a good agreement within an appropriate amount of time and I see no contradiction between the two. I believe we can reach an agreement by November….There is agreement on most issues.”

On Monday, Lieberman met US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter. A Pentagon statement said that Carter and Lieberman “reaffirmed the strength of the US-Israeli defence relationship” and that “they also discussed regional security challenges in the Middle East and areas of mutual defence cooperation”. According to YNet, an unnamed senior Israeli source added after the meeting that “we could reach an agreement on the aid deal soon”.

The current package is worth more than £2bn, but is due to expire in 2017. The two countries have been discussing a new ten-year agreement, but gaps remain on the financial extent of the deal, the military hardware it will include, and how much of the aid can be spent on domestic military products. There has also been disagreement between Congress and the White House over an additional budget for Israeli missile development.

Senior American officials have vowed that the new deal will be the single largest military assistance package for another country in US history. However, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticised by some opponents for stalling on finalising the deal.

Today, Lieberman will attend a roll-out ceremony in Texas where Israel will officially receive the first of 33 F-35 jets, to be known in Hebrew as “Adir” (awesome). Israel is the first country to receive the fifth-generation stealth fighters and the aircraft are expected to arrive in Israel by the end of the year.