WASHINGTON, Dec 17: Pakistan needs 'high-performance' aircraft and will need to make 'alternative arrangements' if it fails to get the F-16s from the United States, says Ambassador Jehangir Karamat.
Pakistan's newly appointed envoy to Washington also dispelled the impression that Islamabad may end up allowing US and other international inspectors into its nuclear installations to probe the allegations that Dr A.Q. Khan had supplied uranium enrichment equipment to Iran.
"We have drawn a line where we thought we needed to and nobody will be allowed to cross this line," said Mr Karamat. While welcoming the US decision to offer a $1.2 billion arms package to Pakistan, the former army chief said that "arms alone cannot make a country stable, we also need a stable economy for that."
The ambassador, who presented his credentials to President George W. Bush earlier this month, expressed these views at his first meeting with Washington-based Pakistani journalists on Thursday evening.
Although it was an informal meeting, Mr Karamat also spoke on major issues confronting the country such as Pakistan's defence needs, relations with the United States and the peace process in South Asia.
The ambassador said he did not understand why India says that the proposed US arms package for Pakistan will disturb the balance of power in South Asia. "We believe the US military assistance will strengthen our defence without causing any harm to India."
Ambassador Karamat said Pakistan needs "high performance aircraft" and if "we fail to get the F-16s (from the United States), we will have to make alternative arrangements."
He said Pakistan already has three P-3 Orion planes, which are used for maritime surveillance, and under the proposed arms package we will get three more. He rejected some media reports as incorrect that the United States had not supplied proper avionics with the first batch of P-3 Orion planes and that was why those planes were being used for transportation only.
"They have all proper equipment and are being used for surveillance, not transportation," said the ambassador, adding that Pakistan was acquiring more P-3s because "we need them."
Mr Karamat said he believes the US military assistance to Pakistan would not be stopped unlike what had happened after the 1965 war and again after the Afghan war in 1990.
In the 1960s, he said, the Americans were very clear that the weapons they had given to Pakistan were meant to be used against the Soviet Union and not India and "when we used them against India, they stopped the supplies".
In 1990, he said, the supplies were stopped because of the dispute over Pakistan's nuclear programme. "This time it is different. Today there's no cold war. America has separate relationships with both India and Pakistan. And nobody knows when this war against terror would end, 5 years, 10, years, 15 years."
Besides, he said, it's not just the military assistance but the United States was also providing assistance to improve the national economy and fight poverty, which indicated a much deeper engagement.
Ambassador Karamat said that even in areas of concern, Pakistan and the United States had a convergence of views. It's in the interest of both the countries to fight those who continue to bomb civilian targets, he added. Pakistan, he said, was also seeking to considerably improve its trade with the United States and is engaged in negotiations for a free trade agreement.
