Friday, September 11, 2009

Suspicions of UAE arms trans-shipments to China?

Times of India, here via WPR
"... It was learnt that the UAE government has admitted to a mistake in the documentation and apologized for failing to report the weapons. Since UAE has friendly relations with India, the government considered the matter sympathetically to avoid a diplomatic row. 
The matter could have been resolved earlier had conventional weapons been on board. But the presence of three boxes, marked "combat missiles", led to the logjam. Sleuths suspected that deadly US-made Harpoon missiles were being channelized to China from UAE and Egypt. If that suspicion were proved true, the unauthorized proliferation could lead to regional imbalances and trigger a crisis, felt experts. 
"The presence of missiles on board made the situation grave. Already, there are reports of Pakistan having modified Harpoon missiles to strike land targets in India," an analyst pointed out."

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