Washington, April 12 (CNA) United States President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright failed to get a concrete commitment from Israeli Prime Minister Barak to stop the planned Israeli sale of airborne early warning equipment to Communist China.
State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin said during a routine press briefing Wednesday that both Clinton and Albright told Barak on Tuesday that things would become uncomfortable and problematic if Israel went ahead with its planned arms sale to China and expressed Washington's deep concerns over this issue.
But, Rubin said "Prime Minister Barak indicated that he understood these concerns, and that we will be discussing this issue further with Israeli officials."
In a background briefing on President Clinton's meeting with Barak Tuesday night, a senior Clinton administration official told reporters that the focus of the four-hour meeting in the White House Oval Office was the Palestinian issue and that Israel's planned sale of Falcon early warning planes was also discussed.
US Secretary of Defense William Cohen had also failed to stop the planned Israeli arms sale to China when he visited there last week. But a Pentagon spokesman pointed out Tuesday that even if Israel agreed to cancel the planned sale, the United States could not prevent such countries as the United Kingdom or France from selling similar equipment to China. (By Nelson Chung)
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