India Post News Service
NEW DELHI: After the US approved a support deal for the F-16 fighter with Pakistan last month, India has expressed its concerns to Washington over this, the External Affairs Ministry said Thursday.
“We have taken up the matter with the US Ambassador in Delhi, as well as with the US government in Washington through our Ambassador,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a media briefing.
“We have expressed grave concern over US military assistance to Pakistan,” Kumar said.
“The US side has told us that the proposed sale does not indicate any change in the US policy of maintaining a freeze in military assistance to Pakistan.”
Close on the heels of Imran Khan’s visit to the US last month, the US approved a support deal for F-16 aircraft with Pakistan, but with conditions attached.
“The State Department has made a determination approving a possible foreign military sale to Pakistan for technical security team (TST) in continued support of the F-16 program for an estimated cost of $125 million,” the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement Friday.
That the proposed sale has got strings attached becomes clear when the statement goes on to say that this would support the foreign policy and national security of the US “by protecting US technology through the continued presence of US personnel that provide 24/7 end-use monitoring”.
Pointing out that there will be no adverse impact on US defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale, the statement said: “This notice of a potential sale is required by law and does not mean the sale has been concluded.”
In Thursday’s briefing, Kumar also pointed out that the US has stated that “the proposed sale is intended to enable the US to continue technical and logistics support services to assist in the oversight of the operations of F-16 aircraft in Pakistan’s inventory”.
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