Pay if you want F-16s, no subsidy: US to Pakistan

Washington: Last week, American lawmakers during a Congressional hearing openly told the Obama administration that they feared Pakistan would be using these F-16 fighter jets against India and not against terrorists. However, both the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Pakistan government insisted that F-16 is an important tool in the fight against terrorism and urged the Congress to remove the hold.

The lawmakers stood their ground and told the Obama administration that it will not remove the hold till Pakistan takes tangible action against the Haqqani network. Now Pakistan has time till May end to avail the American offer to procure F-16s.

Sources told that the May deadline for Pakistan to respond to the new development from the US is based on “offer validity and (Lockheed’s) production process” point of view.Any delay in the acceptance of the offer, would result in increase in cost of F-16s.

However, speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Pakistani official said that Pakistan is unlikely to buy F-16s at its full price as being told by the US now. Earlier, Pakistan was to pay only $270 million for the jets. The US offer of eight F-16s, officials said, might still be there in paper, but it might go in for a long pause and price escalation if Pakistan decides against buying it, sources said.

Pakistan’s top diplomat Sartaj Aziz on Tuesday said Pakistan required F-16 fighter jets from the United States to combat terrorists. He said though the US had stopped funding for the fighter jets but it is providing annually 265 million dollars to Pakistan. Mr Aziz cautioned US that Pakistan will purchase F-16s from other countries if it does not arrange funding. “Pakistan will buy F-16s from some other country if funding (from US) is not arranged,” he said.

His statement came hours after US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said Pakistan should pay if it wants F-16 deal to go through. Mr Aziz stressed the importance of F-16 jets in the fight against terrorism and said they were pivotal to the national defence of Pakistan. To a question, the Adviser said the quadrilateral coordination group was in contact with the Qatar office of Taliban for the revival of peace process in Afghanistan. The Obama administration had announced that Washington would not be financing sale of fighter jets to Pakistan.