India Locks Horn With USA Over Sale Of F-16 Fighter Jets To Pakistan
India is highly disappointed with the American Government announcement of US military assistance to Pakistan and technical support for the F-16 fighter aircraft. It is not only a matter of concern for India but also a huge mistake being made by the Americans. Also this is after making a threat of imposing CAATSA on India. Now India too should issue a threat of imposing its own sanctions on Trump Administration.
Raveesh Kumar the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said that the matter has been taken up with US ambassador in New Delhi as well as the US State Department in Washington.
He said that the US side has said that the proposed deal for F-16 fighter aircraft has not made any difference to Pakistan’s policy of holding US military aid. Significantly, in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fleet there is the F-16-C type 72 fighter aircraft, which were supplied by the US to be used against terrorists only. Whom are the Americans trying to fool ….self or us Indians. F16 hunting terrorists…..will it be video game ?
However, it may be recalled that after the surgical strike of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Balakot, Pakistan, on 27 February, that the country had sent fighter jets including F16s in the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and one of the F16 was shot down by an IAF vintage MIG 21.
What was more baffling to the USAAF was the fact that all BVR missiles fired by F16s were made ineffective by the Indian SU30 MKI. Pakistan was shell shocked and went into a denial mode and gave out stories to suggest that no F-16 was shot down by India. The Pentagon was equally perplexed and there was also no response from the US side on the issue of whether Pakistan has used the American fighter jets against India. It seems they have learn nothing from the episode.
In April this year, Pakistan’s military spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor in a statement had for the first time indicated that F-16s might have been used to hit Indian fighter plans during aerial combat in February. In that statement, Ghafoor had stated that Islamabad retained the right to use “anything and everything” in its self-defence.
The Pentagon earlier this week had notified its decision to approve $125 million worth of technical and logistics support for Pakistani F-16 fighter jets. And it had stated that the proposed foreign military sale would provide “24/7 end-use monitoring” of the F-16s.
In 2016, New Delhi had expressed its disappointment at the decision of the Obama administration to notify the sales of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan. And had said that it did not agree with their rationale that such arms transfers are going to help combat terrorism. According to the official statement issued by the MEA, the US ambassador was summoned to convey India’s displeasure.
Now time has come for India to impose its own sanctions on any country supplying weapons to Pakistan.
