South Korean Defense Ministry's attempt to export a home-grown supersonic advanced trainer jet is facing an obstacle amid its failure on key technology transfer from the U.S.
Earlier, Defense Minister Han Min-goo met with Ash Carter, the United States Secretary of Defense, during Korea-U.S. defense meeting and requested four key technology transfer to build South Korea’s home-grown fighter KF-X. However, Han was caught in an embarrassing situation as the U.S. counterpart found it difficult to transfer the key technologies.
Worse still, the export of domestic supersonic advanced trainer jet T-50 to Uzbekistan was also turned out to be failed due to the opposition from the U.S. Amid the series of failures, ironically, the Blue House and the ruling Saenuri Party publicly promoted that the recent Korea-U.S. summit was reaffirmation of the two nation's strong allies.
The trainer jet T-50 was developed with the help of the U.S. firm Lockheed Martin, which has supported most key technologies such as avionics equipment and engine. So, the local jet was subject to the U.S. Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and needs an approval in order to export. The jet also received an approval from the U.S. when it was exported to Indonesia and the Philippine. However, this time, the U.S. reportedly did not approve the deal because Uzbekistan is considered pro-Russia apart from technology leak issues.
An anonymous industry observer said, "Indeed, technology leak is just an excuse on the surface. The U.S. does not want to sell the weapon made with the U.S technology to its hostile country.”
"The series of failure has made the defense ministry and the aviation industry quite embarrassed,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Korea Aerospace Industries is said to negotiate with the U.S ministry to continue the deal.
