{"id":2894,"date":"2015-07-30T15:37:59","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T15:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=2894"},"modified":"2015-07-30T15:37:59","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T15:37:59","slug":"us-approves-possible-5-4bn-pac-missile-sale-to-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/us-approves-possible-5-4bn-pac-missile-sale-to-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"US approves possible $5.4bn PAC-missile sale to Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The State Department also approved a possible sale of $500mn worth of ammunition to be ‘used to protect Saudi Arabia\u2019s southern border’<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US State Department has approved the possible foreign military sale to Saudi Arabia of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3<\/a><\/span>) missiles and equipment built by Lockheed Martin Corp, worth $5.4 billion.<\/p>\n

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA<\/a><\/span>) notified Congress of the possible sale and is awaiting approval to execute.<\/p>\n

The missile sale approval could help reassure Saudi Arabia about the U.S. commitment to its security.\u00a0The sale would benefit a key U.S. partner in the Middle East, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.<\/p>\n

Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile\u00a0is one the most advanced, capable and powerful terminal air defense missiles in the world.\u00a0The PAC-3 Missile is a high-velocity interceptor that defeats incoming targets by direct, body-to-body impact.<\/p>\n

The Saudi government requested 600 PAC-3 cost-reduction initiative missiles with containers, according to DSCA, along with eight test missiles, telemetry kits, guidance enhanced missiles, fire solution computers, launcher modification kits and other related equipment.<\/p>\n

Notification to Congress was sent on Tuesday and \u00a0“Lockheed Martin<\/a><\/span> is supporting the U.S. government and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia as they discuss the potential sale of additional PAC-3 Missiles as part of the upgrade of the Royal Saudi Air Defense Force,” Lockheed said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The expected multi-billion-dollar sale comes weeks after the US and five other world powers finalized the nuclear deal with Iran<\/a><\/span>, which decided to lift sanctions\u00a0on Iran in exchange for curtailing its nuclear programme.\u00a0Tehran\u2019s arch-rival\u00a0Riyadh has been highly sceptical about the deal but seems to have tentatively accepted it after repeatedly seeking \u201creassurances\u201d from Washington that the deal would not threaten their safety.<\/p>\n

\"PAC-3<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The State Department also approved a possible sale of $500mn worth of ammunition to be ‘used to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"US approves possible $5.4bn PAC-missile sale to Saudi Arabia","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,1,125],"tags":[6,30,356,31,101,113,7,63],"class_list":["post-2894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","category-united-states","tag-defense","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-missile","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-security","tag-u-s","tag-weapons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/PAC-3.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-KG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2897,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions\/2897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}