Taiwan to Buy French Jets, Radio Says
The Taiwanese government, already buying F-16 fighters from the United States, will soon sign a contract to buy 60 Mirage 2000 jet fighters from France for about $2.6 billion, the island’s state-funded radio said Saturday.
Quoting unnamed sources, the Broadcasting Corp. of China said the jet’s maker, Dassault Aviation, had agreed to cut its original price of $54 million per jet by 20%.
The radio said the contract would be signed in the near future but gave no further details.
A Taiwanese Defense Ministry spokesman, asked Friday about a similar report by the semiofficial Central News Agency, declined to comment.
Taiwan has been discussing a purchase of Mirages from France for many months, but the French government, under pressure from China to block the sale, has not yet said whether it would approve a deal.
President Bush announced Wednesday that he had approved the sale of up to 150 F-16 jet fighters to Taiwan in a deal worth up to $6 billion.
China, which has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the civil war in 1949, accused Bush of breaking an agreement not to sell advanced arms to Taipei.
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