Ortega and US head for conflict over old missiles

MANAGUA, Feb 6 (Reuters) The United States told Nicaragua on Monday to destroy Soviet-era anti-aircraft missiles, setting up its first fight with old Cold War foe President Daniel Ortega since he returned to office last month.

Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, reiterated that Nicaragua should keep its arsenal of more than 1,000 SAM-7 missiles because Washington was giving planes to neighbor Honduras.

The United States says it has given Honduras money to buy eight light aircraft to detect drug smugglers and help in natural disasters.

''The US government hopes Nicaragua will continue down the path it has begun of disarmament and destruction of the SAM-7 missiles,'' the US Embassy in Managua said in a statement posted on its Web site, To placate Washington, which says the shoulder-fired missiles could be used by terrorists against airliners, Nicaragua destroyed 1,000 missiles in 2004 out of the 2,000 donated by the Soviet Union when Ortega's Marxist government was fighting a 1980s civil war against US-backed rebels.

But Ortega, who won November's presidential election, said Nicaragua should still not drop its defenses while Honduras and El Salvador had much stronger air power.

Ortega invited Central American nations to enter into a pact on regional military weapons.

''I would totally agree to having the missiles destroyed if we had a Central American accord that -- at the same time -- destroyed the missiles and also other offensive weapons that are getting old,'' he told a news conference yesterday.

''But in Central America there are warplanes, and therefore, unfortunately, that obliges us to have these missiles to defend our country,'' he said.

Honduras and Nicaragua have a dispute over maritime limits in the Caribbean which is being heard at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Ortega has said he wants good relations with the United States in his second term in office and has told US businessmen their investments are safe in Nicaragua, but he has also formed an alliance with Venezuela's anti-US president, Hugo Chavez.

Nicaragua's military has Soviet-made attack helicopters and Antonov transport planes but no fighters or bombers.

The Nicaraguan Congress is considering a proposal by former President Enrique Bolanos to destroy a further 650 of the missiles, keeping the remaining 400 for self-defense purposes.

Reuters RL DB0917