KUWAIT CITY, May 26 (AFP) - Kuwaiti Defence Minister Sheikh Salem al-Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah left Wednesday on a tour of the United States, France and Switzerland, the official news agency KUNA said. It said Sheikh Salem and his US counterpart William Cohen would co-chair a meeting of a joint military commission. In April, the Kuwaiti chief of staff insisted over the opposition of MPs that the purchase of US Paladin howitzers was the "right choice" for the Gulf emirate's armed forces. "The defence ministry has US military and technical reports which prove that the Paladin ... is the right choice," Ali Mohammad al-Mamun said. Several members of parliament, which was dissolved earlier this month because of a lack of cooperation with the government, contested the army's purchase of 48 Paladin cannons at a price of 436 million dollars. The deal has not yet been finalized, the defence minister said last month, despite earlier announcements. The audit bureau, which is linked to parliament, has complained that the Paladin was more expensive than the Chinese equivalent and that China had offered better payment terms. And it said the US military refused to guarantee that the weapons' range would be increased from 18 to 40 kilometers (11 to 25 miles) in line with Kuwaiti specifications. The US Congress froze the contract in December in order to investigate possible irregularities. After the United States, Sheikh Salem is to travel on to France to take delivery of rapid patrol boats for the Kuwaiti coast guard built by the Ocea shipyards. In Geneva, the defence minister is to take part in a UN committee meeting on the missing from the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraqi occupation forces were expelled from Kuwait, KUNA said. -=-=- 