DarkTimes - 24Hr Global News Blog

Pakistan's political upheaval is unlikely to affect a USD284-million deal for acquiring 700 air-to-air missiles from a US company, the manufacturer has said.

Raytheon Missile Systems, which is based in Arizona, signed its biggest-ever international deal with Pakistan under which it will supply 500 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, or AMRAAMs, and 200 AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles.

Paul Nisbet, a Raytheon analyst with JSA Research Inc, said action against US arms sales to Pakistan was unlikely. "Politics very seldom has anything to do with changing the contract," he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

Raytheon's deal with Pakistan marks the largest single international AMRAAM sale. The deal will be completed in 2008. The US government will buy the missiles from Raytheon and then supply them to Pakistan under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.

Any defence purchases by foreign governments, such as Pakistan's, have to be cleared by the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency.

The FMS programme, Nisbet said, is intended "to partly shield the company from the politics" and to help countries that don't have the "capability of monitoring these very complex contracts".