New Delhi: Amid reports from Washington recently that the United States had approved military sales worth $125 million that would result in end-use monitoring of the F-16 fighter aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force, India has “expressed grave concern” and has apparently lodged a strong protest with the United States against any resumption of military assistance to Islamabad. However, the US has informed India that the “proposed sale does not indicate any change in the US policy of maintaining a freeze in military assistance to Pakistan”, New Delhi said on Thursday.
This comes just days after US President Donald Trump’s recent controversial remark in which he had claimed that PM Modi had asked for his mediation on the Kashmir issue. New Delhi had swiftly denied the claim.
Pakistan had used the F-16 fighter aircraft against India in its military retaliation against India on February 27 following the Balakot airstrike inside Pakistan by the Indian Air Force the previous day.
At a briefing in New Delhi on Thursday evening, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “We have taken up the matter with the US Ambassador in Delhi, as well as with the US government in Washington through our Ambassador. We have expressed grave concern over US military assistance to Pakistan. 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.”
The MEA spokesperson added that the US has already publicly 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”.
According to recent news agency reports from Washington, just days after the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan there, the Pentagon had notified the US Congress of its decision to “approve military sales worth $125 million that would result in 24x7 end-use monitoring of the F-16 fighter jets of Pakistan”.
US officials had reportedly asserted that the freeze in security assistance to Pakistan on Mr Trump’s direction, since January 2018, was still in place and the latest decision would help it in 24x7 end-use monitoring of the F-16 fighter jets in that country as this would require the assignment of 60 contractor representatives there to assist in the oversight of the F-16 programme.
“There has been no change to the security assistance suspension announced by the president in January 2018. As the president reiterated this week, we could consider the restoration of certain security assistance programmes consistent with the broader tenor of our relationship,” a state department spokesperson had earlier told news agency PTI in Washington. He referred to the notification sent in this regard by the Pentagon to the Congress on Friday. “This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by protecting American technology through the continued presence of US personnel that provide 24x7 end-use monitoring,” he had been further quoted as saying.
“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 USD 125 million,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency was quoted as having said earlier in a statement, according to reports. The Pentagon had delivered the required certification notifying the Congress of this possible sale.
According to the reported statement, Pakistan had requested a continuation of technical support services — US government and contractor technical and logistics support services — and other related elements of logistics support to assist in the oversight of operations in support of the Pakistan Peace Drive advanced F-16 programme.
