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By Gustavo Palencia
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – The US has resumed offering Honduras with radar data used for the surveillance and pursuit of plane suspected of transporting medication, a Honduran army chief stated on Monday.
The US suspended radar data cooperation with Honduras in 2014 after the Honduran Congress handed a regulation that licensed its air power to shoot down plane suspected of transporting medication.
Honduras shot down two suspected drug-running planes in 2012, and in response, the U.S. suspended cooperation, arguing it violated a bilateral settlement prohibiting assaults on civilian plane.
The top of the Joint Chiefs of Employees of the Honduran Armed Forces, Vice Admiral Jose Fortin, posted on Twitter a letter from the U.S. embassy in Honduras indicating that the State Division had lifted restrictions to “permit the U.S. authorities to renew the alternate of real-time air monitoring knowledge with Honduras.”
“Honduras has demonstrated that it might probably make use of sufficient safety procedures,” the embassy stated within the letter, addressed to Protection Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya.
The embassy didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Zelaya stated in a put up on Twitter that the coverage change was a “clear signal of President Xiomara Castro’s dedication within the combat towards drug trafficking and within the safety of the area.”
Honduran lawmakers handed reforms in 2020 stopping plane from being shot down if there are indications that people who find themselves not taking part in illicit drug trafficking are on board.
Honduras, an vital leg within the smuggling of cocaine from South America to america, seized 7,134 kg of cocaine in 2022 after seizing 17,832 kg in 2021, in accordance with data from army authorities.
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