Up to US to decide what to do with decommissioned HAWK missiles, Taiwan says

13/11/2024 15:04

        It is up to the United States to decide what to do with Taiwan's decommissioned HAWK anti-aircraft missiles, the island's Defence Minister Wellington Koo said on Wednesday, when asked if they would be transferred to Ukraine.
        
        The United States and its allies have provided billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine since Russia attacked the country two years ago in what Moscow calls a "special military operation".
        
        That has included weapons being phased out by some Western nations, like F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands.
        
        Koo, speaking to reporter at parliament and responding to a question on whether Taiwan's decades-old HAWK missiles could go to Ukraine, said Taiwan no longer needed the weapons and their decommissioning was being handled in accordance with regulations.
        
        "If the U.S. side requests that we transfer them back to them, we will do so in accordance with the relevant regulations and return them to the United States, and then the United States will decide what to do with them," he said, without elaborating.
        
        Taiwan has offered strong moral support to Ukraine since the invasion, seeing parallels with the threat Taipei says it faces from its giant neighbour China, which claims the democratically governed island as its own territory.