Two MOUs on weapons signed between Korea, UAE

President Yoon Suk Yeol shakes hands with United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials after arriving at Abu Dhabi International Airport on Sunday. [YONHAP]

Korea and the United Arab Emirates inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) pledging "strategic" defense industry cooperation, Seoul's arms procurement agency said Monday.

Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) and the UAE’s Tawazun Council, which is in charge of defense and security acquisitions for the country, signed the MOU in Abu Dhabi on Sunday in the presence of President Yoon Suk Yeol and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan following the pair’s summit.

According to DAPA, the memorandum is a pledge by both countries to continue efforts for joint investment, research and technological development to deepen their cooperation in weapons.

“This MOU cements the ‘special strategic partnership’ between South Korea and the UAE, and is expected to contribute to enhancing substantive defense industry cooperation between the countries’ respective defense acquisition agencies,” the agency said.

DAPA also said that it expects the memorandum to boost Seoul’s efforts to export air defense systems.

Korea and the UAE signed a separate MOU on bilateral cooperation on the development of a multi-role transport aircraft.

Together, the two MOUs could help Seoul’s efforts to deepen its involvement in the Middle Eastern arms market.

The UAE signed an agreement last January to buy a Korean mid-range surface-to-air missile (M-SAM) Block-2 defense system, also known as Cheongung II, in a deal worth $3.5 billion.

The UAE was the first foreign buyer of Cheongung II, and the deal’s price tag made it Korea’s single largest defense system export to date.

The UAE has also been using Korean-made Chunmoo multiple-launch rocket systems after contracts were signed in 2017.

In a sign of defense cooperation between the two countries, Korean Army Chief of Staff Gen. Park Jeong-hwan visited a Chunmoo operation site in the UAE last month.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to Yonhap, one industry observer raised the possibility that deepening bilateral defense ties could lead the UAE to also buy the KF-21, Korea’s first indigenously developed fighter jet.

The UAE was known to be in talks with the United States to purchase Lockheed Martin’s F-35, but informed Washington in December 2021 that it would suspend negotiations after “"technical requirements, sovereign operational restrictions, and cost/benefit analysis led to a re-assessment,” according to a UAE official who spoke to Reuters.

The UAE was also involved in financing Russia’s low-cost 5th generation stealth fighter, the Sukhoi Su-75 Checkmate, but “appears to paused its involvement in the project, drying up a critical source of funding and R&D” after Russia invaded Ukraine, according to an October article in Business Insider by Maya Carlin, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]