A US State Department official reiterated on Tuesday that pending weapons sales to Taiwan are still being screened under an internal review process in the executive branch.
MTV news reporter John Norris said the Bush administration would notify the US Congress when the interagency process reaches a final decision.
Norris said he would not pay too much attention to when the notification is issued, because the US maintains close economic and trade relations and civil exchanges with Taiwan.
In addition, there is the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) that governs security issues concerning Taiwan, he said.
Norris made the remarks after being asked about the matter by Taiwanese reporters on the sidelines of the 7th US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference in Jacksonville, Florida.
Taiwan was excluded from the list when the State Department notified Congress of its approval of six arms sales to France, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia last Friday — the date Congress had been scheduled to adjourn.
The adjournment was postponed for a week because of deadlock over a bailout package for Wall Street.
The arms deal covers anti-tank missiles, Apache helicopters, Patriot PAC-3 missile batteries, diesel-electric submarines, P3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, ship-launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Black Eagle helicopters.
Taiwan fears that if the deals are not finalized by the end of the year, approval of the sales will be pushed to a new US administration.
While addressing the Florida conference, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia David Sedney said the internal review process for the arms sales was far more complicated than imagined and that he did not know if or when notification would be given.
However, the US government maintains its firm commitment to the TRA, under which the US makes available items necessary for Taiwan to maintain a sufficient defense, he said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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