ISLAMABAD: The United States on Thursday denied media reports about the halt of the F-16 aircraft programme with Pakistan.
“These reports are not accurate. Neither Pakistan nor the United States has cancelled the F-16 programme,” a US embassy statement said.
It added that the planned delivery of the last ‘new-buy’ F-16s purchased by Pakistan is scheduled to arrive in late January.
“Several other F-16s purchased by Pakistan from the United States are undergoing mid-life upgrades and will arrive in Pakistan beginning in late January.”
The statement mentioned that the deliveries will continue throughout this year and the next.
COMMENTS (15)
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Please can you confirm mode of payment for F16. Was it check payment? Ha Ha.
@Harry Stone: Show me an example of recent warefare where aircrafts engaged in a dog fight and the superior and complex aircraft won the aerial battle, aircrafts now a days are used in ground attacks mostly and the kind of low intensity conflicts pakistan is involved in JF-17 is serving the purpose very effectively, pakistan shouldnt buy aircrafts for WW3 as its gonna be nukes flying all over the glob, no need for F-16s for that.
@Cautious: There is no free lunch. do you live in a delusional land?
..@AN
your info is totally wrong....check up again.US never gives anything free. They paid 11 billin dollars to pak and pak spent/wasted 80 billions:
@Cautious: so when the US has provided free materials to any body?
@AN: no F-16 has ever given under AID,better put record and memory right,once,instead Americans gave wheat in lieu of returning the money,cheapness is not only restricted to poor or hungry even Americans were too cheap in fulfilling their comments to Pakistan number of times so recall.
@Sweetdee..US indeed supplied free F-16's(low end version) under military aid.Get your facts right.You didn't pay a dime for most of F-16's which was supplied during Musharaff's regime and now under Zardari.
@Hamid:
Actually it is not but if you chose to believe that OK. What you will discover is how effective a fighter is more complex than just the airframe. But your are correct the JF17 is much less expensive. Ever asked yourself why that might be?
Should have stopped through some kind amendment or bill,hobby is hobby,no harm Americans play it again.What justification USA will give to India on this act because they answerable to Indians for any to Pakistan,is it not a dilemma.
@Cautious: For your info, Pakistan does not rely on US for F-16 spares. There are other sources as well.
I think we should rely more on JF17s. F16 may be a good aircraft but JF17 is much better, cheaper and does not have the 'no spare part' problem because all of its spare parts are easily manufactured locally.
@Cautious: I am happy to see Indians reading Pakistani online news papers. However I just want to repeat that it is not Pakistan who was getting free items from US. It was Pakistan who had given every thing like road network, storage areas etc at almost free to US, So it is the other way round your comment is not based on reality.
With JF-17 in development why do we need more F-16. This money could be spend better locally.
The USA has no problem selling aircraft to Pakistan - you just won't be getting anything free anymore. USA has significant leverage on every country that uses American aircraft - you can't even fly USA aircraft in combat exercises with other countries without getting express permission and the USA has the ability to cut off spare parts anytime which would eventually makes the planes combat ineffective.