Taipei - The United States will approve the sale of 12 P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft before the year-end, a newspaper reported Friday, quoting a military official.

The Apple Daily quoted Navy Admiral Wang Li-shen as saying that the US will approve the sale of 12 P-3Cs before the year-end, and the P-3Cs will join the Taiwan Navy in 2012.

US naval personnel recently inspected facilities at an airbase in Taoyuan, near Taipei, to see if it was capable of receiving the P-3Cs, the daily quoted Wang as saying.

Wang said that as the budget for the 12 P-3Cs is large, the Taiwan Navy is not buying Harpoon missiles which are carried by the aircraft, but will share the 60 Harpoon missiles the US agreed to sell to the Taiwan Air Force early this week.

The Apple Daily said that Washington's up-coming sale of the 12 P-3Cs to Taiwan indicates the US has ended the freeze on arms sales to Taiwan which reportedly was caused by improved Taipei-Beijing ties.

The US had halted arms sales to Taiwan in late 2007, in the light of the island's improving relationship with Beijing.

In August 2008, Taiwan's new president Ma Ying-jeou said that nevertheless, Taiwan would push ahead with US arms deals in tandem with the pursuit of better relations with China.

In 2004 US President George W Bush approved an arms sales package to Taiwan which included 12 P-3C Orion maritime patrol and anti- submarine aircraft, six batteries of PAT-3 anti-missile systems and eight diesel-electric submarines.

Following the visit of Taiwan parliament speaker Wang Jin- pying to the US in early August to push the arms sale, Taiwan officials said Bush would approve the deal after the Beijing Olympics. (dpa)