Report: “Croatia sold Russian ground-to-air missiles to Israel in 1995”
Dror Marom
11.06.2001 16:10
The Croatian government secretly supplied Israel with an S-300 ground-to-air missile battery, after buying the battery from Russia at Israel’s request, the Arabic-language, London-based newspaper “Asharq Al-Awsat” reported over the weekend. The paper says that the deal was done in 1995, and Israel paid Croatia $19 million for the missiles.
”Asharq Al-Awsat” said that Israel was unable to buy such a missile battery directly from Russia, and proceeded to buy it indirectly through Zagreb. Russia supplies these advanced missile batteries to various Arab and Muslim countries, including Syria, Libya, and Iran. It appears Israel wanted the missiles to study their technology, in order to protect itself against them.
The paper added that the Croatian authorities are checking how the missiles were taken out of the country. According to the paper, the deal was done, and the missiles taken out of the country, when the late Croatian President Franco Tudjman was in office.
Security relations between Israel and Croatia are not close, and diplomatic relations were established only four years ago. One of the reasons for the cool relations is Croatia’s cooperation with Nazi Germany.
Security relations between the two countries have improved recently, with high-ranking visits by both sides. Last year, former Deputy Minister of Defense Ephraim Sneh met with Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic, who came to Israel for talks. The Croatian delegation that visited Israel included five senior ministers.
At the talks, Israel and Croatia discussed large-scale security cooperation, which was supposed to to ultimately be worth $300 million. Israel pressed for a commercial agreement for upgrading MIG 21 aircraft, won in 1999 by Israel Aircraft Industries and Elbit Systems (Nasdaq: ESLT). The future of the deal was in doubt, due to Croatia’s budget difficulties.
At the talks, Israel and Croatia also discussed other arms sales agreements, but senior Ministry of Defense officials felt that another round of talks was necessary to finalize the issues.
The aircraft upgrade deal is expected to be worth $80-120 million. The Israeli consortium was chosen to do the upgrade, after beating out international companies. Later on, however, following the Croatian delegation’s visit to Israel, the Croatian Ministry of Defense announced the project had been cancelled due to budget difficulties.
Israeli security sources believed, however, that the deal was halted by the new government in Zagreb, which announced that “it was not bound by decisions taken by the outgoing government.” Other Israeli-Croatian security projects, including a $300 million tank upgrade, are also in doubt.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense denied the report, saying that Israel had never bought missiles from Croatia or Russia.