No German Aid for Israel Sub Purchase

Israel is currently negotiating to buy two new German submarines as part of a plan to improve its coastal defences, but does not have the money to pay for the new submarines.

During his visit to Jerusalem on Monday, Struck met his Israeli counterpart, Shaul Mofaz, and also spoke with Israeli President Moshe Katzav and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The German defense minister emphasized that his government had no fundamental objections to selling Israel the u-boots. "In principle the German government would have no reservations about an export licence," he stressed, adding that "we are fully conscious of Israel's security needs. But we are not in a position to make any form of financial concessions".

In other words, the price of €500 million per submarine won't be reduced -- unlike the last time Israel bought submarines from Germany, when Berlin allowed a huge discount. Struck made clear that this won't be happening again.

Israeli jets hit Lebanon

For now, the issue remains undecided. A final decision on exporting submarines to a crisis zone such as Israel would have to be taken by Germany's security council, whose meetings are not made public.

In fact, German government policy is to limit arms exports to conflict regions. But tension in the Middle East shows no sign of letting up.

A day after Struck's comments, Israeli warplanes carried out an air strike close to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, with a spokesman for the Israeli military saying it had struck at a guerrilla target in response to missile fire on an Israeli naval vessel, while Lebanese sources said the target was a Palestinian guerrilla base south of Beirut.

Intensified bilateral cooperation

Nonetheless, Struck seems optimistic that the deal will go ahead and also suggested the deal would be reciprocal.

"Israel has a special experience when it comes to un-crewed airplanes," he said, pointing out that "right now such planes are mostly deployed for surveillance. But Israel is very advanced in the development and armament of this system. That’s very interesting for us. And we will follow up on this point in the course of our intensified bilateral co-operation."

The German government also continues to offer assistance in the exchange of prisoners between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militias. German mediation prompted successful completion of such an exchange in January this year. As Struck said "The Israeli president and the prime minister both thanked us for the assistance that we provided. We offered our help whenever it was necessary. And I hope that there will be further opportunities to exchange prisoners with the assistance of the German air force."

On Tuesday, Struck met with Israeli students at the private university in Herzliya before going on to talks with opposition leader Shimon Peres.