Foreign Minister of Israel Shimon Peres said last Wednesday that Israel regretted the inconvenience to China of its cancellation in July 2000 of the sale of an airborne radar and surveillance system. He also said in a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Israel Pan Zhanlin that Israel hoped “to find a right solution acceptable to both sides.”
The issue resurfaced at a routine news briefing on December 18, 2001 when Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said that China hoped Israel would obey the rules of nation-to-nation relations and provide a plan to solve the problem which would satisfy China, so as not to influence the bilateral relations between China and Israel.
According to officials in the Foreign Ministry of Israel, Peres in his meeting with Pan emphasized Israel’s relations with China and praised Beijing’s responsible stance against international terrorism.
Israel’s cancelation of the sale in July of 2000 was reported to have been under pressure by the United States.
Israeli Ambassador to China Ora Namir, who was appointed to her post in 1996 after China established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992, last December strongly criticized her government’s action which she said amounted to "a splitting from establishing good relations with China."
( 中国新闻社 [China News Agency], January 4, 2002 translated for china.org.cn by Zheng Guihong)
