 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
|
 |
| ‘Taiwan did not dismantle US missile parts’ |
|
|
|
Friday, March 28, 2008
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s defence minister on Thursday said the island did not dismantle and examine nuclear missile parts mistakenly shipped by the United States, in an incident which has angered China and embarrassed Washington.
The US military was supposed to ship helicopter batteries to Taiwan, but instead sent fuses used as part of the trigger mechanism on Minuteman missiles, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Taiwan returned the parts to the US last week.
No nuclear material was shipped to Taiwan, Pentagon officials said.
Taiwan’s Defence Minister Tsai Ming-hsien was asked in parliament by Nationalist Party legislator Lin Yu-fang whether the parts had been inspected by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, a weapon’s development body in Taiwan. “As far as I know, no,” Tsai said.
Lin wondered if that was not a little like looking a gift horse in the mouth. Taiwan has developed a range of weapons on its own, often with US help, because many countries will not sell the island weapons due to Chinese pressure.
“Sometimes you can’t have gifts from heaven,” the minister replied.
A Taiwan defence official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that Taipei had alerted the United States to the fact they had shipped the wrong equipment over a year ago, but only this month received a reply asking for the parts back.
“It said on the side of the box it was batteries. Upon opening it was not what we had ordered. We didn’t know what it was as we don’t have that equipment, so we told the United States they’d sent over the wrong stuff,” the official said.
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
