Mon, Oct 20, 2003
But No Outright Ban On Missiles
Asian nations, along
with the United States, issued a joint statement from Bangkok over
the weekend, saying they'll investigate beefing up controls on
"production, stockpiles, transfer and brokering" of portable
anti-aircraft weapons.
But the ministers, attending the Asia-Pacific Economic
Conference meeting in Thailand, stopped short of a total ban on
shoulder-mounted SAMs. They were worried about their own arms
export operations. Secretary of State Colin Powell was one of
them.
Thousands of Russian SA-7 missiles (pictured above,
right) are thought to already be on the open market, within
easy reach of terrorists.
"There has been a widespread agreement that amongst the various
other counter-terrorism measures that APEC should consider is
measures to stop the trade and trafficking in what is known as
MANPADS -- handheld anti-aircraft missile systems," Australia's
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
"And we are are pleased
that APEC has now agreed to explore ways in which it can overcome
the threat of MANPADS and Australia has been been very supportive
of that."
MANPADS were in the headlines less than a year ago
Two of them were fired at an Israeli charter flight leaving
Kenya for Tel Aviv. They missed. But now, Washington has put out a
bid to have his military contractors develop ways for civilian
aircraft to counter the shoulder-mounted threat.
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