The Ministry of Defense of Poland has addressed with a letter to the Pentagon in which it threatens to refuse to purchase Patriot air defense systems if Washington does not transfer technology to Warsaw within the framework of the deal, Defense News reported citing the text of the document.
In early July, the Ministry of National Defense of Poland and the US Department of Defense signed an agreement on the delivery of Patriot air defense systems to Warsaw. The signing of the document took place during the visit to Poland of US President Donald Trump to Warsaw. It is expected that the system will be transferred to Poland until 2022.
The letter was sent to the Office of Defense Cooperation of the US Department of Defense on July 15. It states that first the US must transfer to Poland elements of the technologies of the integrated control system and radar system PAC-3, as well as launchers. Later, the conditions for the transfer of classified information must be agreed upon, which will allow the transfer of production of SkyCeptor missiles and radars based on gallium nitride to Poland.
“Failure to comply with these provisions will lead to a rejection of the proposal, which will lead to a disruption of the supply process within the program,” the portal quotes the letter.
After the content of the message began to leak into the media, the Polish department published a statement on this site on its website, in which it tried to soften the wording. The report indicated that Poland “will continue negotiations in the spirit of mutual understanding.” The ministry also reproached the media, which disseminated the text of the letter, in an attempt to spoil relations between the two states and use “selective fragments” from the inter-departmental correspondence of Poland and the United States.
The manufacturer of systems Patriot company Raytheon has declared to the portal, that negotiations about deliveries go in a normal mode.