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U.S. GOVERNMENT, CONTRACTOR CLARIFY MISSILE DELIVERY REPORT

Jul 12, 2002 14:14 UTC+0800

Washington, July 11 (CNA) The U.S. defense contractor Raytheon Co. said Thursday that a recent report on the delivery to Taiwan of advanced AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, which the company is now assembling, was not correct.

A Reuters report on Wednesday said Raytheon would complete delivery of its 15th annual production batch of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, including the 200 missiles being assembled for Taiwan, by the autumn of 2003 and that the delivery could start as soon as this October.

Raytheon spokeswoman Colleen M. Niccum said she had only told Reuters that the "Lot 15" missiles being assembled included those ordered by Taiwan. As to when the missiles would be delivered to Taiwan, she said, the matter is up to the U.S. government to decide.

According to Niccum, customers of the "Lot 15" AIM-120s include the U.S. military, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore. Niccum said she was neither aware of how many of the AIM-120s now under production would be sold to Taiwan nor was she aware where the Taiwan-ordered missiles would be stored.

Meanwhile, David Des Roches, spokesman for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency under the U.S. Department of Defense, said that the Bush administration must call an inter-department meeting to decide whether to deliver the sophisticated medium-range air-to-air missiles to Taiwan.

Des Roches said the U.S. policy on the missile delivery is very clear and applicable to various areas. The policy is mainly aimed at avoiding spurring any regional arms race, he said, adding that when the conditions materialize, the U.S. government will honor its promise to deliver the missiles.

The United States agreed to sell 200 AIM-120 missiles to Taiwan in 2000 on the condition that they be stored at U.S. military bases and delivered to Taiwan only when mainland China acquired a weapon system of similar capability, such as the Russian made AA-12 missiles.

Des Roches said the Bush administration will deliver AIM-120s to Taiwan only after it concludes that such delivery will not affect the military balance in the Taiwan Strait nor trigger a new arms race.

It may still take some time before the Bush administration reaches such a conclusion, Des Roches said.

Other Pentagon officials said Taiwan is not anxious to take delivery of the missiles as it is still preparing sites for their storage and arranging test-firing affairs.

Speculation about possible U.S. delivery of AIM-120s arose after the Washington Times reported last week that mainland China successfully test-fired AA-12 Adder missiles from its Russian-made Su-30 jet fighters in late June. Both AA-12 and AIM-120 fall into the same category of active radar-homing and fire-and-forget missiles.

(By Jay Chen and Sofia Wu)