Monitoring Desk:
United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israeli companies signed a strategic agreement with regard to research about the novel coronavirus. Emarati APEX and Israel Tera group signed the agreement to work collectively in research sector regarding the deadly virus, which has claimed more than 7,00000 lives worldwide, this news was reported by UAE’s state news agency WAM on Saturday.
The deal “is considered the first business [deal] to inaugurate trade, economy and effective partnerships between the Emirati and Israeli business sectors, for the benefit of serving humanity by strengthening research and studies on the novel coronavirus”, WAM quoted APEX’s chairman Khalifa Yousef Khoury as saying.
In an NPR radio interview, the US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that “the more the Emirates become a friend of Israel, become a partner of Israel, become a regional ally of the United States, I think obviously that alters the threat assessment and could work out to the Emirates’ benefit” on future weapons sales.
David Makovsky, director of the Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, told Reuters the deal is “a win for the Emirates, which will undoubtedly be eligible for military sales that it could not obtain due to ‘qualitative military edge’ restrictions due to fear certain technologies could be used against Israel”.
