WASHINGTON, Jan 3: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has asked the Bush administration to reconsider the deal to sell F-16 jets to Pakistan.

On Dec 31, the Pentagon awarded a $498.2 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp to supply 18 F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan by 2010.

But Mr Biden, a six-term senator who also chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the deal, coming only days after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, complicates US efforts to promote stability and democracy in a volatile nuclear-armed nation.

“The administration’s decision is just plain wrong and should be reversed immediately, until Pakistan returns clearly to the democratic path,” said Mr Biden in a statement released late on Wednesday.

“This is the time we should be putting pressure on the government and military to fully investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and to hold free and fair elections and not let them off the hook,” he said.

“The recently passed Defense Appropriations bill bars any assistance to Pakistan for weapons sales that are not for counter-terrorism purposes. The primary purpose of F-16s is to balance India, not to combat the Taliban or Al Qaeda. If the sale involves no US assistance, it is technically legal but fundamentally misguided,” Mr Biden claimed.