Legislature authorizes Cabinet to sign letters securing U.S. weapons

Taipei, March 13 (CNA) Taiwan's Legislative Yuan on Friday passed a motion authorizing the Cabinet to sign letters of acceptance (LOA) for four weapons systems approved for sale by the United States that were set to expire this month.

The motion was passed by the full Legislature based on the conclusion reached during cross-caucus talks a day earlier.

The four systems -- M109A7 self-propelled howitzers, Javelin anti-armor missiles, TOW 2B missiles and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) -- form the bulk of a US$11.1 billion arms package announced by the U.S. in December.

They will be funded through a special defense budget currently under review in the Legislature.

The Cabinet and the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) have submitted competing bills on the spending plan due to disagreements over its scope, and without a quick resolution in sight, they decided to focus on the LOAs first because of approaching deadlines.

The LOA for the HIMARS system was to expire on March 26, and those covering the other three weapons systems were to expire Sunday. Failure to sign the letters may have forced the arms procurement process to begin again.

Ministry of National Defense (MND) official Huang Wen-chi (黃文啟) said Thursday that the U.S. had not formally agreed to the MND's request to push back the March 15 deadline, but had said the ammunition for the HIMARS would be removed from the package if Taiwan missed the signing deadline.

The motion also directed the Cabinet to brief the Legislature on the estimated delivery dates of the U.S. weapons systems during and after the review of the special budget, as the United States currently has a US$8.28 billion backlog of arms yet to be delivered to Taiwan.