WASHINGTON, June 18: The United States and Pakistan are working on a deal for reviving the sale of F-16 jetfighters to Pakistan blocked more than 12 years ago following a dispute over Islamabad’s nuclear programme, a US journal, Defence and Foreign Affairs, reported on Wednesday.

Pakistan, however, would be getting new Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters instead of the old ones it bid for in the original deal negotiated in the late 1980s, the report said.

The deal will be announced later this month when President Pervez Musharraf visits Washington next week, said the report quoting highly-placed Washington sources.

But US sources told Dawn that the deal would not be discussed during the President’s visit which begins on June 24.

It will be discussed in the third meeting of the joint US-Pakistan Defence Consultative in Washington later this summer, the sources said.

The council, formed after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorists attack in the United States, had already held two meetings in Islamabad and Washington.

The Defence and Foreign Affairs said that the US administration had already informed India of its decision to sell F-16 aircraft to Pakistan.

During his recent visit to Washington, Indian Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani received the “disappointing” news from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the report said.

“Significantly, Mr Rumsfeld broke the news of the intended sale in a special, and very private, meeting with Mr Advani at the Willard Hotel, in Washington, on June 8. The meeting was highly unusual in that Mr Rumsfeld wanted to tell Mr Advani personally of the proposed sale to Pakistan, in order to avoid the news reaching the Indian government through less formal channels.”

It said Indians were clearly unhappy at the news, but, given the requirement of maintaining good relations with Washington, they did not leak the news to the media.

Meanwhile, diplomatic sources told Dawn that the negotiations for reviving the F-16 deal reflect the recognition of Pakistan’s support to the US-led war on terror.

Policy makers in Washington, the sources said, believed that several recent developments had increased Pakistan’s position as a key member of the US-led coalition war against terror.

In Iraq, the sources said, an ever-increasing resistance to the US presence had also enhanced America’s desire to bring in troops from allied Muslim states like Pakistan to police the troubled Arab country.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban and pro-al-Qaeda elements also have increased attacks on US and Afghan government forces. This has led to a realization in Washington that they need to make some sort of arrangement with the lower cadres of the Taliban leadership and other Pakhtun factions opposed to the Hamid Karzai government, the sources said.

President Karzai also has appealed to these elements to cooperate with his government, announcing that he was ready to make a deal with those Taliban workers and supporters who were not directly involved in terrorism.