WASHINGTON, April 3: Designation as a "major non-Nato ally" gives a member state access to commercial satellite technology and allows it to buy depleted uranium from the United States, according to a set of documents Dawn received on Friday.

The facilities a member is entitled to, however, depend on the type of membership offered by the US administration.

The official US introduction to the MNNA status also makes it clear that it "does not entail the same mutual defence and security guarantees afforded to North Atlantic Treaty Organization members."

The law authorizing the designation creates two categories of MNNA status. The first category is under title 10 US Code, section 2350a. The second is under section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

The law authorizes the Secretary of Defence, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, to designate MNNAs for purposes of participating with the Department of Defence in cooperative research and development programmes. Israel, Egypt, Japan, Australia and the Republic of Korea were given MNNA designation under title 10 in 1987, followed by Jordan (1996), Argentina (1998), New Zealand and Bahrain (2002), and the Philippines and Thailand (2003). On Thursday, Kuwait also was designated an MNNA under title 10.

Designation under this provision permits firms from a country to bid on certain US government contracts for maintenance, repair or overhaul of the Pentagon equipment outside the United States, makes a country eligible for certain joint counterterrorism research and development projects and allows the Pentagon to enter into cooperative R&D projects with the country to improve conventional defence capabilities on an equitable cost-sharing basis.

Designation under section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 authorizes the US President to designate a country as an MNNA after a 30-days notification to Congress.

Designation under this provision makes a country eligible, to the maximum extent feasible, for priority delivery of excess defence articles, if it is on the south or southeastern flank of NATO.

It makes a country eligible to buy depleted uranium ammunition. It makes a country eligible to have US-owned war reserve stockpiles on its territory outside of US military installations. For instance, the Pentagon closed down in 2002 a previously existing war reserve stockpile, established in 1987, and transferred the remaining munitions to Thailand, which is a major non-NATO ally.

The designation allows a country to enter into agreements with the US government for the cooperative furnishing of training on a bilateral or multilateral basis under reciprocal financial arrangements that may exclude reimbursement for indirect costs and certain other charges.

It allows a country to use US-provided foreign military financing for commercial leasing of certain defence articles and makes it eligible for loans of materials, supplies and equipment for cooperative R&D projects and testing and evaluation. The designation also makes a country eligible for expedited processing of export licenses of commercial satellites, their technologies, components and systems.