The US Department of Defense on Monday said that it has no plans to send F-16 jets scheduled for delivery to Taiwan to Poland instead, calling speculation raised by a US media report “not accurate.”
The comments by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby followed a report in the New York Times on Sunday, which said that the administration of US President Joe Biden was exploring ways to supply Polish Soviet-made fighter jets to Ukraine to aid in its war against Russia, as Ukrainian pilots are more familiar with Russian-made jets.
One option was to send US-made F-16s to Poland as replacements, the report said, although “Polish officials seemed less than enthusiastic.”
Photo: CNA
With the next tranche of F-16s for export set to go to Taiwan, those fighter jets were an option, the report said, adding that US officials were reluctant to delay Taiwan’s F-16 program.
Asked in a CNN interview on Monday whether F-16 jets meant for Taiwan could be provided to Poland, Kirby replied: “That rumor is not accurate.”
However, he did acknowledge that Washington would not “stand in the way” if any nation did want to provide fighter jets to Ukraine.
In that regard, the US has started to have conversations about how it could “backfill,” or replace, jets transferred to Ukraine by another nation, including “what kind of aircraft, where would they come from and how do you get them,” Kirby said.
However, he said that the US did not have “any answers” at the moment and that there was “no proposal on the table.”
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday confirmed that the administration has been consulting with Poland and other NATO allies on the possibility of transferring jets to Ukraine, but said the decision was ultimately up to Warsaw.
Aside from the question of how to transfer Polish jets to Ukraine, the issue of providing replacement jets to Poland was also logistically complex, given that procuring new planes and transferring weapons systems often takes years, Psaki said.
Washington in 2019 approved the sale of 66 F-16Vs to Taiwan in an US$8 billion deal, with delivery expected to start next year and extend through 2026.
The 66 F-16Vs are to be deployed at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung County.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is also upgrading its F-16A/B jets to the more advanced F-16V format.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS