U.S. working on agreement with JSF partner nations

Published: Sep 14, 2005
Source: today.reuters.com



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday said it hoped to hammer out by next summer a new partnership agreement with eight other countries on the $245 billion Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Joint Strike Fighter.

Rear Adm. Steve Enewold, program executive officer for the F-35 fighter, said two more meetings were planned with the global partners before year's end. He said the goal was to finalize a new memorandum of understanding by mid-2006 for countries to take to their parliaments for ratification.

That would allow the new agreement to take effect by December 2006, he said. It will replace the current one, which covered just the plane's development phase.

Enewold said the discussions were complex, especially since the partner nations -- Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway -- were used to buying finished airplanes, as opposed to helping develop a new plane.

But he said reports of strife among the F-35 partners, which have invested amounts ranging from $100 million to $2 billion to help develop the plane, were overblown.continue..