Israel reassures U.S., will limit space contracts with Moscow

JERUSALEM -- Israel, seeking to ease U.S. concerns over space cooperation with Moscow, plans to issue a pledge to the Clinton administration that Israeli space companies will not sign with Russian companies any contracts prohibited to their American counterparts.

Senior government sources said the pledge is meant to assuage Washington that it does not seek to fill the vacuum left by U.S. space companies banned from joint ventures with their Russian counterparts.

"Our message is that as long as the United States refrains from cooperating with Russia in space, we will do the same," a senior source said. "We are not trying to take advantage of their sanctions."

The pledge is expected to be relayed by Defense Minister Moshe Arens during his visit to Washington next week. Arens will meet with his American counterpart, William Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Council adviser Sandy Berger.

In 1996, the United States, over the protest of its space industry, set at 16 the number of U.S.-built satellites that can be exported through 2000 for launch to geostationary orbits by Russian-built rockets. Space companies such as Lockheed Martin and two Russian companies, Khrunichev Space Research and Production Center, Moscow, and Rocket Space Corp., Energia, and their supporters in Congress had pressed for up to 30 launches in an effort to offer lower-cost satellite services to prospective international and domestic clients. The three companies said they had already booked 18 launches through the end of 1999.

In an April 19 editorial, the U.S. trade publication Space News accused President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore of abandoning the space industry by allowing strict export restrictions. The newspaper said the restrictions as well as State Department responsibiity over satellite exports "are slowly strangling the U.S. satellite industry."

The U.S. limit on launches was taken as part of Clinton administration sanctions on Moscow to stop the transfer of missile and nuclear weapons technology to Iran. So far, 10 Russian companies have been sanctioned and can no longer cooperate with their U.S. counterparts.

U.S. officials and congressional sources agree that Moscow appears most pained by the threat of sanctions on its space industry. Officials said so far there are no plans to discuss more joint space launches.

Senior Israeli government sources said Clinton administration officials were fuming over reported plans of an Israeli-Russian consortium on space launches. The consortium was proposed by former Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. executive Dov Raviv.

Raviv envisions sending satellite launchers at greatly reduced costs with specially-designed rockets powered by Russian engines. The Israeli sources said Raviv's plan alarmed the administration, which concluded that Raviv would probably sign contracts with sanctioned Russian companies.

Israeli sources said they will issue a pledge to Washington that the government will not allow Raviv to bypass U.S. sanctions on Russian companies. The sources said the administration was the first to tell the Israeli government of Raviv.

"He never asked for any loans so we weren't able to tell him no," a government official said.

So far, Israeli space executives said they have not been told of any restrictions on contracts with Russia. Raviv, for example, said he has not been approached by the Israeli government.

"I am not an Israeli company," said Raviv, who spent two years in jail after he was convicted of embezzlement in the early 1990s. "I am an international company. We are registered abroad and in Israel."

IAI is also a partner of an American-Israeli consortium West Indian Space Ltdl, Cayman Islands, to launch aboard the Russian Start-1 rocket up to eight remote imaging satellites over the next five years. Patrick Rosenbaum of West Indian said his company already signed an accord for three satellite launches and has not been told of any Israeli restrictions.

"We are not an Israeli company," he said. "We are from the Cayman Islands."

U.S. congressional sources have expressed concern over what they termed is the strict limitations on cooperation with Russia. They have argued that harsh restrictions could push U.S. companies such as Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, Md., out of Russia forever.

Israeli officials said they were twice approached by congressional leaders over the past three months and asked whether the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would object to raising the space launch ceiling from the current 16 to at least 20. Officials said they did not issue a formal response.

In the 1996 agreement signed by Gore and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin a provision was included that could raise the ceiling of launches to 20 in accordance with market demands.