Skip to main content

French UAE Rafale Deal Back On Track - Report


France could seal a long-awaited deal for Dassault to sell at least 60 Rafale fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates by April, turning around what appeared to have been a lost cause, French newspaper La Tribune reporte.


The French-built jet emerged on Tuesday as preferred bidder in a $15 billion contest to supply India with 126 warplanes, lifting hopes for a sale that would boost French national pride and restore the lustre of its aviation sector.

Citing unidentified sources, the paper said on its website that President Nicolas Sarkozy would go to the UAE in March or early April when the contract is likely to be finalised.

The deal, potentially worth $10 billion has been in the works since 2008, but was thrown into doubt in November when the world's fourth-largest oil exporter said the proposed terms were "uncompetitive and unworkable." It asked for details of a rival aircraft, the Typhoon built by the Eurofighter consortium.



"Everything has been unlocked (between the UAE and Dassault)," an unidentified source told La Tribune.

A French government source told Reuters that Paris was waiting to hear from the Emirates this month. Dassault and the Defence Ministry declined to comment.

Sarkozy scored a commercial coup with the announcement this week that years of lobbying had pushed India close to buying the Rafale and will look to make political gains ahead of April's presidential election in which he is lagging in the polls behind Socialist rival Francois Hollande.
The UAE has pressed for the aircraft's engines to be upgraded with extra thrust and for better radar, industry sources have said.

La Tribune said there were a few technical details still to be ironed out, but that they were easy to resolve. It added that as part of the deal Paris would take back the Emirates' existing Dassault-made Mirage fighters.
Speaking after the India announcement, French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet hinted there could be more deals ahead.

"Good news are like worries, they fly in squadrons," he said. "That (deal) is the start of a squadron of good news."

A French win in the UAE could also lead to further contracts in the Gulf Arab region which shares the West's concerns that Iran is using its nuclear energy programme to develop weapons, a charge Tehran has denied. Saudi Arabia inked a deal for U.S. arms worth nearly $60 billion a year ago.

Qatar, a close French ally, said last year it wanted to replace its fleet of Mirage fighter jets during 2012 possibly buying 24 to 36 units. Kuwait in 2010 said it was also considering buying Rafales to replace its ageing Mirage fleet.

According to analysts the Gulf countries are looking to have the same aircraft for inter-operability reasons as well as differentiating themselves from Gulf power house Saudi Arabia, which uses U.S. Boeing-built F-15s.

 http://in.reuters.com/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pakistani JF-17 A Thunder OR A Blunder

Pakistan has witnessed new defense acquisitions in this decade than any other, and in the center of it all is the new fighter which was designed by China with partial funding from Pakistan. It is formally known as JF-17 Thunder. When the fighter was in development, Pakistani online communities were jumping with excitement comparing it with its arch rival India’s modern combatants Su-30MKI, Mig-29S & Mirage-2000H. There were claims of it featuring western Radars and long range missiles, & Chinese ordering some due to its superior capabilities. But the reality is far from it. China having spent significant amount of money into a fighter which it is never going to use, most probably forced Pakistan to accept its avionics to offset some its development costs. Chinese who are known for their self reliance first and quality next, are further downgrading JF-17s capabilities with their poorly copy-pirated avionics. Along with their dubious weapons, any chance of JF
48 comments
READ MORE

Pakistani F-16s Shoot Down RAF Eurofighter Typhoons During Air Combat Exercises In Turkey

Pakistani pilots flying modernised versions of the 1970s-vintage F-16 Falcon fighter have beaten the RAF's brand-new Eurofighter Typhoon superfighters during air combat exercises in Turkey, according to a Pakistani officer. Analysis: The RAF Typhoon, formerly known as the Eurofighter, should nonetheless have been vastly superior in air-to-air combat whether BVR or close in within visual range (WVR). The cripplingly expensive, long-delayed Eurofighter was specifically designed to address the defects of its predecessor the Tornado F3 – famously almost useless in close-in, dogfighting-style air combat. The Typhoon was meant to see off such deadly in-close threats as Soviet "Fulcrums" and "Flankers" using short-range missiles fired using helmet-mounted sight systems: such planes were thought well able to beat not just Tornados but F-16s in close fighting, and this expectation was borne out after the Cold War when the Luftwaffe inherite
18 comments
READ MORE

India Planned Attack On Pak Navy Mehran Base To Kill Chinese Engineers

The terrorist attack on Karachi's Mehran Naval Station on May 22 was conceived and launched by India with the primary objective of killing the Chinese engineers present there, a Pakistani newspaper has claimed, citing 'informed sources'. Four to six Taliban terrorists had entered PNS Mehran on May 22, destroying two maritime surveillance aircraft and killing ten military personnel during their 17-hour siege of the naval air base. "India is the only country in the region that feels troubled by the Pakistan Navy, which had awfully beaten the Indian Navy in Operation Dwarka of 1965. Since then, it has been an earnest desire of India to harm the Pakistan Navy but it was perhaps not possible on the battle front, hence it struck the PNS Mehran," The News quoted sources as saying.
23 comments
READ MORE