Despite its concerns over Pakistan’s fast-expanding nuclear arsenal, the United States is preparing to sell eight new F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad in an apparent bid to bolster the tenuous bilateral relations, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing senior US officials.
The report, coming ahead of the White House meeting between President Barack Obama and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said US Congress has been notified about the proposed sale.
It remains to be seen if Congress decides to go along with the Obama administration or blocks the proposed sale, given the considered view of many lawmakers that the F-16s are more useful to Pakistan in its long confrontation with India than for counter-terrorism.
Pakistan already has more than 70 F-16s, besides dozens of French and Chinese attack aircraft.
And the sale of F-16s, if cleared by Congress, will come on top of the earlier US supply of 14 combat aircraft, 59 military trainer jets and 374 armoured personnel carriers in May this year.
News of the proposed sale of F-16s comes on top of the US plan to negotiate a civilian nuclear deal that may perhaps have received a setback with Pakistan’s public assertions that it will not accept limits on its use of tactical nuclear weapons to “deter” any aggression by India.
The Federation of American Scientists, a leading American think-tank that monitors the spread of nuclear weapons, published a report on Wednesday which shows that Pakistan has expanded its nuclear arsenal to 110 to 130 warheads, up from a range of 90 to 110 just four years ago.
Estimating that Pakistan could move at a much faster clip and raise the number of warhead to 225 to 250 by the year 2025, the scientific group has spoken of Pakistan becoming the world’s fifth largest nuclear power by that date, behind the US, Russia, china and France.
Although the predecessor George W. Bush administration had designated Pakistan as a “Major Non-NATO Ally” after its support for the US war in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, relations between the two countries have steadily deteriorated in recent years.