An air force spokesman declined to say how many F-16s Pakistan has, but the variety of the plane inprovider is believed to be around 70. (Reuters report image)
ISLAMABAD:
HIGHLIGHTS
Pak making plans to buy used F-16 fighter jets from Jordan
Pak navy also sees the plane as important in case of warfare towards India
Fleet of F-16 jets are because of be decommissioned inside the following few years
reviews in Pakistan suggest that the usa is making plans to buy used F-16 fighter jets from Jordan, after a deal to get eight fighter jets from america fell thru due to the refusal of the us Congress to finance the deal.
a number of Pakistan’s fleet of F-sixteen jets are due to be decommissioned in the following few years and the government says it wishes the plane to combat terrorists inside the far off mountains close toAfghanistan.
The Pakistani military additionally sees the plane as essential in case of conflict against India.
“we’re now going for a third–party transfer of F-16s and feature a proposal from Jordan,” Defence Secretary Alam Khattak advised a joint sitting of the Senate defence and overseas affairs committees on Monday, Pakistani newspapers pronounced.
An air force spokesman declined to say how many F-16s Pakistan has, but the variety of the aircraft inprovider is assumed to be around 70.
Jordan had offered to promote Pakistan sixteen used F-16s of the Block-30 variation, an older model than the Block-52s that Pakistan might have acquired from the usa, the sunrise newspaper pronounced.
america deal, worth $699 million, got here unstuck after the us Congress refused to authorise the usage ofUS government budget to pay for the aircraft beneath the overseas navy Financing (FMF) programme.
members of america Congress, led through Republican Chairman of the Senate overseas members of the family Committee Bob Corker, demanded that Pakistan stop harbouring terror groups just like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani community, that are main an insurgency in opposition to a US-sponsoredauthorities in Kabul.
Pakistan claims it’s far performing against the terrorists, mentioning navy operations in lawless ethnic Pashtun lands that border Afghanistan.
Pakistan says the F-16s, with their precision strike capacity and night time-flying capability, are essentialfor that fight.
the issue over the F-sixteen deal changed into the state-of-the-art signal of increasingly more frayed ties between Pakistan and the us.
final month, a US drone killed Mullah Akhtar Mansour, then chief of the Afghan Taliban, on Pakistani soil.
Pakistan condemned the strike as a contravention of its sovereignty, and as now not being conducive closer to encouraging the Taliban to enter talks with the Afghan authorities.
Pakistan has sold Jordanian F-16s earlier than, buying thirteen of them in 2014, dawn reported. Thecutting-edge batch on provide had been manufactured among 1988 and 1990, and have been upgraded in 2001/02, the record said.
© Thomson Reuters 2016
