13:49 GMT, April 2, 2009 The Finnish Air Force is buying at least 200 million euros worth of new equipment for its F-18C Hornet jet fighters. American JASSM air-to-surface missiles may become the latest addition to Finnish fleets, YLE Finnish Broadcasting reported yesterday.

The government’s financial affairs committee gave the go-ahead on Wednesday to buy the weapons from the US Navy. The hardware includes long-range air-to-ground missiles.

The upgrade is part of a 17-year development programme with a total price tag of about one billion euros.

Under the plan, the entire fleet of Hornet jets will be updated by the end of 2016. The need for updating was already known when the decision was made to buy the US-made planes in 1992.

Two agreements on industrial cooperation are linked with the deal. The Finnish Patria Aviation will install the devices.

Top-of-the-line missiles

Finnish defense officials expect the US to sell Finland its top-of-the-line JASSM air-to-surface missiles as part of the upgrade programme for the country's fleet of F-18 Hornet jet fighters.

According to a Defense Ministry memo accessed by YLE, both the JASSM and the German-Swedish Taurus missile are under consideration.

In February 2007, the United States declined to sell JASSM missiles to Finland, which at the time was seen by some as a sign of political mistrust.

Officially it was denied that there was any friction between the two countries. Later there was speculation that the US had been experiencing technical problems with the missiles and so put a freeze on sales abroad.