U.S. Agrees to Dismantle Spy Plane

The Bush administration has agreed to dismantle a damaged U.S. spy plane and ship it home from China on a chartered Russian cargo jet, abandoning its hopes of flying the EP-3 back to the United States, officials said Tuesday.

“We have agreed now in principle that an Antonov-124 aircraft can be used to remove our EP-3 aircraft from Lingshui air field on Hainan island,” State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker said. “Details of the recovery operation remain under discussion, but that agreement in principle is now set.”

Last week, China announced an agreement to ship the plane back to the United States in pieces. At that time, the State Department and the Pentagon insisted that there was no final deal. But Tuesday, the administration accepted China’s conditions for returning the plane, which made an emergency landing April 1 following a collision with a Chinese fighter jet.

The dispute over the return of the plane was mainly symbolic. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials had insisted that the plane could be repaired and, therefore, should head home under its own power. Chinese officials replied that they wouldn’t permit a U.S. spy plane to take off from a Chinese airstrip.

“We have explained the Chinese reason. It’s not a technical issue--it has to do with the nature of this plane and how and where it landed,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Tuesday, according to Associated Press.

In another demonstration of Sino-U.S. tensions, China has refused to let a U.S. warship make a port call June 28-July 3 in Hong Kong.

Reeker said China gave no official explanation of its decision to deny the visit by the Inchon, a mine countermeasures support ship.

While the U.S. has had a number of Hong Kong port visits, Reeker noted that the Inchon is not the first U.S. warship to be denied permission to anchor in the former British colony now under Chinese rule.