India raises concerns over Washington’s proposed package for maintaining Pakistan’s F-16s

WASHINGTON: Formally publicizing arrangements to service Pakistan’s line of F-16 aircraft, the US State Department said that it views Pakistan as “an important counterterrorism mate” and expects it to “take sustained action against all terrorist groups”.

Last week, the US State Department approved the implicit trade of sustainment and affiliated outfit to Pakistan in a deal valued at over to $450 million, with the top contractor being Lockheed Martin Corp.

Responding to queries after his press conference on Tuesday, Spokesperson Ned Price said that as part of its longstanding policy, Washington provides “life cycle conservation and sustainment packages for US-origin platforms ”.

Mr Price refocused out that the F-16 programme was “an important part of the broader US- Pakistan bilateral relationship and this proposed trade will sustain Pakistan’s capability to meet current and unborn counterterrorism pitfalls by maintaining the F- 16 line.”

The line, he said, “allows Pakistan to support counterterrorism operations, and we anticipate Pakistan will take sustained action against all terrorist groups.”

His response answers some of the questions raised in India that the F-16s would strengthen Pakistan’s air capabilities, which goes against New Delhi’s interests. The US functionary, still, made it clear that the new programme aims only at erecting Pakistan’s strength to fight terrorism and shouldn’t be seen in India- the Pakistan environment.

Still, the response did little to conciliate New Delhi, which is still concerned about the decision and the Indian defence minister conveyed it as important to his American counterpart on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

“I conveyed India’s concern at the recent U.S. decision to give a food package for Pakistans F- 16 line,” Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh wrote on Twitter following what he called a “warm and productive” telephone discussion with US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin.

Included in the upgrade are US government and contractor engineering, specialized and logistics services for follow-on support of Pakistan’s F-16 line. It also includes variations and support of aircraft and machine tackle and software as well as form and return of the spurts and machine reserves, classified and unclassified software and software support among others.

During the press briefing, Mr Price was also asked about the ban on the transmission of ARY News. “We continue to be concerned by significant restrictions on media outlets and civil society in Pakistan We routinely raise our enterprises about press freedom to all stakeholders around the world, including to our mates and our counterparts in Pakistan.”

He told the ARY intelligencer who posed the question that Washington was “concerned that media and content restrictions, as well as a lack of responsibility for attacks against intelligencers, undermine the exercise of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”

He also mentioned that with respect to US backing to Pakistan in connection with the flood tide exigency, an aggregate of nine US Central Command breakouts had delivered further than half of the 630 metric tons of relief inventories from USAID’s Dubai storehouse for the response to these massive cataracts.

“In total, CENTCOM will airlift further than 41,000 kitchen sets 1,500 rolls of plastic sheeting, knockouts of thousands of plastic tarps, and 8,700 sanctum fixing accoutrements – all in support of USAID’s flood tide relief.”

In this financial time alone, we’ve handed further than $53 million in philanthropic backing, including urgently required support for food, nutrition, multipurpose cash, safe drinking water, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene, as well as sanctum backing. We’re going to continue to work veritably nearly with our Pakistani mates to continue to assess the damage that has been wrought by these cataracts, and we’ll continue to give backing to our mates in this time of need.