The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) on 21 December signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Riyadh aimed at co-operating closely on modernising the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) and involving the delivery of an unspecified number of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.

The Eurofighter jets will replace a significant number of the RSAF's existing 96 Tornado aircraft supplied by the UK's BAE Systems under the Al-Yamamah defence deal originally signed in 1985.

'Under the terms of the signed document, Typhoon aircraft will replace the Tornado air defence variant (ADV) aircraft and others currently in service with the RSAF,' an MoD statement said. The deal, the first sale of Eurofighter jets to a non-European country, followed a meeting between King Abdullah and UK Defence Minister John Reid in Riyadh on 21 December. The Eurofighter aircraft is being developed by a consortium of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The order will secure a significant amount of work for BAE over the next 10 years.

It is understood that the co-operation agreement also covers the upgrade of Tornado aircraft as reported by MEED in July and October (MEED 7:10:05; 8:7:05). The deal would involve BAE upgrading RSAF interdictor-strike (IDS) Tornadoes from GR1 to GR4 standard. The overall value of the deals is estimated to be worth about $10,000 million.

Under the MoU, BAE will also 'invest in local Saudi companies, develop an industrial technology transfer plan and provide suitable training for thousands of Saudi nationals'.