Will Israel's Elbit, Rafael join Iranian rival firms in Vietnam arms expo?

With Vietnam’s Defense Ministry telling Reuters that Israeli and Iranian defense companies will both appear at an arms expo in Vietnam in December, The Jerusalem Post got mixed signals about whether this will really pan out.

According to Reuters, “Companies from Iran, Israel, China, Russia, and the United States will showcase military equipment at an arms expo in Hanoi in December, Vietnam’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday, a rare case of geopolitical rivals exhibiting their wares together.”

Reuters cited Elbit and Rafael as examples of Israeli companies that attended the same conference in Hanoi in 2022, also implying somewhat that they would attend next month’s conference, along with Iranian companies.

But Elbit specifically told the Post it is not attending the conference, and Rafael, at press time, had not yet indicated whether it will attend or not.

Two separate other government defense sources declined to comment on the report, presumably indicating that some Israeli defense companies will attend the conference but worried that too much public attention could lead to public criticism.

Reuters noted, “The expo will bring together defense companies from Israel and Iran, who have launched missile attacks and airstrikes on each other in the past year. Iran will attend even though it is subject to sweeping Western sanctions.”

Attendance at Vietnam arms expo amid Middle East tensions

The Post also contacted one of the Reuters reporters who wrote the article about whether they had concrete information confirming Israeli attendees, but had not received a response back at press time.

Another defense source told the Post that Israel had appeared at similar defense conferences in recent years with Iran in Singapore and in some European countries and that both countries were simply trying to sell their defense products.

In other words, the source said that neither country will communicate with the other at the conference nor will they harass or hassle the other, as their sole interest in the conference is their own defense sales.

According to Reuters, “Communist-run Vietnam has for years been seeking to diversify its military supplies to reduce its decade-long reliance on Russia, and has discussed potential procurement deals with multiple countries trying to leverage its flexible diplomacy of good relations with great powers,” meaning that for Hanoi, whether Israel and Iran show or don’t show is a distant side point to a broader picture of diversifying its own arms industry.

There were contradictory reports, even on Vietnam’s defense website, about whether over 20, 40, or 50 countries were participating in the conference, which could still reflect dynamism about potential last-minute cancellations due to political or other considerations.

China’s state-owned defense giant Norinco Group, which is subject to US sanctions, will attend, said Le Quang Tuyen, deputy head of the Defense Industry Department, on the sidelines of a press conference about the expo on Tuesday.

In the same large exhibition area in a military airport in the outskirts of Hanoi, US companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin will also have their booths, Tuyen added.

Lockheed Martin is in advanced talks with Vietnam for the supply of a handful of C-130 Hercules military transport planes, a senior US official said earlier this month, confirming an earlier Reuters report.

A company spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the matter.

A spokesman for Boeing said the company attends a variety of events and does not pay much attention to who its economic competition is at those events, focused rather on selling its products.

The variegated list of attendees is “bamboo diplomacy on show,” said Nguyen The Phuong, an expert on Vietnamese security at Australia’s University of New South Wales, using a popular definition for Vietnam’s flexible foreign policy.

“Vietnam will play with any partner it sees fit, particularly in defense,” he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.