March, 14 2005	Monday	03 Safar 1426

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WASHINGTON, March 13: Condoleezza Rice, who begins her first South Asian tour as US secretary of state on Tuesday, may offer to sell weapons, including F-16 jet fighters, to India and Pakistan, diplomatic sources in the US capital told Dawn.

Ms Rice, who has advanced her visit to India by a day, is expected to tell the two nations that the US wants good ties with them and that is why it has come up with this proposal. She is now arriving in New Delhi on Tuesday and leaving for Islamabad on Wednesday.

Dawn reported this dramatic shift in the US policy towards the two countries on Feb 11 and on Feb 12. The Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, Jehangir Karamat, told reporters that Islamabad would not object to India buying F-16s if Islamabad was also permitted to acquire the sophisticated fighter jets.

Washington had stopped all arms sales to the two nations after they tested their nuclear devices in May 1998. Pakistan, which depended almost entirely on the US for weapons, was badly affected by this ban which did not affect India.

Since the 1960s, India had been refusing to buy US arms because of periodic sanctions that interrupted supplies, but recently New Delhi showed interest in buying F-16s from the US while soliciting bids for a purchase of 126 multi-role fighter planes — a programme estimated to be worth $7 billion to $9 billion.

This rekindled America’s hopes for selling weapons to India and US officials indicated to New Delhi that they want to be one of the biggest suppliers of arms to the South Asian nation.

But diplomatic sources in Washington say that the US does not want to leave Pakistan in the lurch while negotiating a deal with India and that is why it may offer to sell F-16s to the both countries.

Pakistan has been frustrated for years in its desire to buy new F-16s for its air force, which already has 32 older model F-16As and F-16Bs. The US Congress cancelled a sale of about two dozen F-16s to Pakistan in 1990 following differences over Islamabad’s nuclear programme.

The first indication that the US is interested in selling the F-16 to India came in November when the State Department permitted Lockheed Martin Corp., which builds the F-16 in Fort Worth, Texas, to give India information on the plane.

Ms Rice may use her visit to tell Indian officials that an F-16 sale will be approved if India chooses the plane, diplomatic sources said.

Pakistani officials hope Ms Rice will confirm approval of their request to purchase 18 new F-16Cs and F-16Ds along with “mid-life update kits” to modernize their older models.

India wants to buy only 18 planes directly from the manufacturer and plans to get the other 108 in the 126-plane package by building them in India under license.

Such major arms sale to India would end US efforts to use sanctions as a means to prevent India and Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons.

India has traditionally bought most of its weaponry from Russia, and the Russian-made MiG-29M is one of the planes New Delhi is considering for the multi-role fighter deal. Other planes under consideration are Sweden’s Saab Gripen and France’s Dassault Mirage 2000-5.