‘Not monetary help’: US clarifies F-16 fighter jet aid to Pakistan | Watch
The United States’ ‘$450 million sustainment and associated gadget programme’ to help Pakistan’s F-sixteen fighter jets is a part of a agreement among the 2 international locations and does now no longer represent ‘monetary’ assist, State Department spokesperson Zed Tarar instructed information company ANI.
Speaking at the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia, Tarar said, “These are 30-yr antique aircraft… (provision of) spare elements have been withinside the identical agreement”, and that United States ‘continues a near eye on terrorism’. Tarar’s remark comes an afternoon after US president Joe Biden met Chinese chief Xi Jinping and careworn Washington’s committment to its Indo-Pacific allies.
In September, the Biden management accepted the F-sixteen bundle for Pak (reversing an current ban to do so) after the State Department argued the cash could assist enhance Islamabad meet terror-associated threats via way of means of retaining its fighter jet fleet fight ready.
“The United States authorities has notified Congress of a proposed Foreign Military Sales case to maintain Pakistan Air Force’s F-sixteen programme. Pakistan is an critical counterterrorism companion and, as a part of longstanding policy, the USA affords life-cycle renovation and sustainment programs for US-starting place platforms,” the branch said. The bundle, however, did now no longer encompass the sale of any new capabilities, guns or munitions, and any help became now no longer predicted to regulate the region’s primary army balance.
The bundle became billed as essential help to Pak following a 2018 ban via way of means of former US president Donald Trump that stopped all protection and protection resource to a rustic now no longer Islamabad specific as a ‘companion’ of americaA in preventing terrorism.
