{"id":43192,"date":"2026-03-10T06:04:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=43192"},"modified":"2026-03-10T06:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:04:37","slug":"taiwan-says-us-drone-orders-not-impacted-by-middle-east-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=43192","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan says US drone orders not impacted by Middle East war"},"content":{"rendered":"
An order for four advanced US-made MQ-9B “SkyGuardian” drones is on track and hasn’t been affected by the war \u200bin the Middle East, Taiwan’s air force said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The air \u200cforce said in a statement that the order for the drones, made by General Atomics and designed for surveillance and target acquisition, is proceeding according to schedule. It has previously said it \u200bexpects delivery of the first two later this year.<\/p>\n

The US and Israeli \u200battack on Iran, on top of the Russian invasion of Ukraine \u2060and Israel’s military operations in Gaza, has seen the US draw down billions of \u200bdollars’ worth of weapons stockpiles.<\/p>\n

The United States is Taiwan’s main source of weapons, and Taipei \u200bhas repeatedly complained of delivery delays due to snarled supply chains dating back to the COVID pandemic, including of F-16V fighter jets.<\/p>\n

Read: AI-enhanced images of real events distort view of US-Israel war on Iran<\/p>\n

“Deliveries have not been affected by the fighting in the Middle East,” \u200bthe air force statement said.<\/p>\n

“The military remains in close contact with the US \u200bside to ensure progress stays on track and to effectively strengthen overall national defence capabilities”.<\/p>\n

The MQ-9 \u200cseries of \u2060drones has been widely used in combat situations, including by Israel over Gaza.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters earlier on Tuesday at parliament, Taiwan Defence Minister Wellington Koo said the government had not been approached by the US about transfers of weapons to the Middle \u200bEast.<\/p>\n

If any of Taiwan’s \u200bUS-made weapons were \u2060to be redeployed, that would only happen if the US side made a request, he added.<\/p>\n

“But so far, because of the US\u2013Iran \u200bwar, they have not approached us about making use of \u200bany of \u2060our related equipment,” Koo said.<\/p>\n

Read more: Erdogan tells Iran violation of Turkey’s airspace \u2018cannot be excused for any reason\u2019<\/p>\n

Democratically governed Taiwan is facing increased military pressure from China, which views the island as its own territory. Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.<\/p>\n

South Korea \u2060cannot stop \u200bUS forces in Korea from redeploying some weapons, President \u200bLee Jae Myung said on Tuesday, after reports that some US Patriot missile defence systems were being sent \u200bto the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An order for four advanced US-made MQ-9B “SkyGuardian” drones is on track and hasn’t been affected by the war \u200bin the Middle East, Taiwan’s air force said on Tuesday. The air \u200cforce said in a statement that the order for the drones, made by General Atomics and designed for surveillance and target acquisition, is proceeding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}