Nicaragua's National Assembly on Thursday agreed to destroy 651 surface-to-air missiles that the United States wants scrapped for fears that they may end in terrorist hands.

After a stormy session, legislators in favor of the missiles' destruction established a quorum to vote for the destruction of the batch of shoulder-fired SAM-7 missiles bought in the 1980s.

Nicaragua dismantled 1,000 of its missiles in 2005. Washington has sought to convince it to destroy its estimated 1,000 remaining SAM-7s, but Nicaragua insists on keeping 400 of the missiles for its own national defense force.

Source: Xinhua