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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (97142)	5/1/2003 9:02:03 PM
From: NickSE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

US to penalise France, drops weapons trade expressindia.com Washington, May 1: US has drawn up a series of penalties to be inflicted upon France for not supporting it in the war against Iraq, media reports said on Thursday. Political pressure from Washington could hurt several lucrative French weapons programmes, including Mirage 2000 fighter planes, Leclerc tanks and black Shaheen cruise missiles, the Defence news weekly reported. A French request to extend the tour of duty of its representative at the US Air Force's global positioning system programme office in Los Angeles "apparently has been denied". Meanwhile, a joint French-British-US military exercise was cancelled, citing the ongoing war and "unavailability" of troops. Earlier this month, Pentagon said it would not allow its planes to fly at or officials to attend Paris Air Show. "The consequences of this rupture are going to be horrendous to French trade and business, from tourism to investment in the country, to the receptivity in Washington to France expanding its industrial interests in US," Evan Galbraith, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Special Assistant for Europe, said. Orders for French-made Mirage 2000 could drop if Gulf states, under influence from US, opt for US jets like F-16s. Washington could also pressurise countries like Saudi Arabia to decide against the Leclerc tanks, the weekly said. Black Shaheen, the derivative of M8Da French scalp cruise missile destined for the UAE relies on components that require US export licences, it added. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell had declared that there will be "consequences" to France for not supporting the US-led war on Iraq