Kuwait receives four French warships

Paris on Sunday handed over to Kuwait four warships at a cost of US $250 million, the first batch of 8 similar warships whose mission will be to control the territorial waters off the coast of Kuwait and around the nine islands which are affiliated to Kuwait in the waters of the Gulf.

The length of each ship is 42 meters and they each weigh 250 tonnes.

The contract for these warships was signed between Kuwait and Paris in March 1995. The other four warships will be handed over to Kuwait in the year 2000.

The warships will be provided by Bader-Bader Sea Skua missiles made by a joint project between France's Matra Defense and British Aerospace. The missile deal, which is estimated at a cost of US $150 million, has raised a storm in the Kuwaiti Nation's Council (parliament), which had postponed its approval after it had found that the offer proposed by the French company Aerospatiale, which produces MM 15 missiles, "was much better."