Pakistan may study other fighter options as US asks Pakistan to make full payment for F-16 purchase

[shah1398]

But your Uncle sam is providing you F 16....

Ofcourse he is and come what may he has to.

 

[MadDog]

If Pakistan can not afford F 16 tha they can not afford other russian and European planes. They will be left with no option but to buy it from China and may get J 10. I with India will be very happy if Pakistan have CHiese plane rather than the US , Russian or even European plane.

Ok be happy, just the way your entire defence establishment was happy when they found out that Chinese Yuan class sub (Pak supposed to get 8 of those), emerged in Karachi after lurking under your territorial waters for days without being spotted by your entire navy and their P-8 I's !!!

 

[Kurlang]

Pakistan may study other fighter aircraft options, US told

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has conveyed to the United States that it does not have the money to buy F-16 jets from its resources and has cautioned that if the stalemate over funding is not resolved it may consider buying some other fighter aircraft to meet its needs.

According to a diplomatic source, this was conveyed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to US Ambassador David Hale at a meeting at the Foreign Office.

Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, PAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman and Special Assistant Tariq Fatemi also attended the meeting.

Initially, the deal for the sale of eight F-16s to Pakistan was to be partially funded through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) with the US providing $430 million, while the remaining $270m was to be paid by Pakistan from its national resources. But after the Congressional hold on subsidising the sale through FMF, the US administration asked Pakistan to make a commitment to buy the jets from its own money.

But the Pakistan government refused to make any pledge unless the restriction on financing through FMF was lifted.

There is a perception in some quarters that the government made a mistake by refusing to make the commitment for the purchase of the fighter aircraft because doing so would not have precluded the option of financing through FMF in future.

The Pakistani commitment, it is believed, would have eased Congressional pressure on the administration, besides allowing the process for approval and appropriation of the entire FMF package to move forward. The process is being currently held back because of the very intense debate on the financing of the F-16 deal.

In view of the lingering impasse, the administration has now started emphasising on the Congress to focus on the package instead of getting stuck with one of its elements.

The FMF money for this year has to be approved and appropriated before September 30 or else the funds would remain no more available.

Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, in a media interaction on Tuesday, said Pakistan was working with the “suppliers to see what could be alternative sources of financing”.

Mr Aziz said that Pakistan would only buy the F-16s if some arrangement was worked out “otherwise we will look for some other (fighter) aircraft”.

He, nevertheless, looked optimistic about the issue being resolved and said: “We’ll be able to find some way out”. The message from the adviser looked very calculated.

It should be recalled that Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, whose committee has jurisdiction over foreign arms sales and who is maintaining the hold on the financing of the deal, had while voting in favour of the sale of the jets to Pakistan in March noted that he did not block the deal so that Islamabad is not driven towards Russian- or French-made jets.

Mr Corker had then said that he would like to maintain US leverage over Pakistan, which he described as uncertain ally, through its continued reliance on the US for maintenance of F-16s.

Despite approving the deal, Mr Corker withheld its financial component.

Among the key reasons behind the Congressional hold are concerns that Pakistan has not taken enough action against the Haqqani network; jail sentence for Dr Shakeel Afridi — the physician who had cooperated with the US in tracking Osama bin Laden; and fears about Pakistani nuclear programme.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2016

 

[vsdave2302]

Ok be happy, just the way your entire defence establishment was happy when they found out that Chinese Yuan class sub (Pak supposed to get 8 of those), emerged in Karachi after lurking under your territorial waters for days without being spotted by your entire navy and their P-8 I's !!!

No you misunderstood me. am very happy if Pakistan gets chinese weapons rather than US, Russian or even European. Look at my post. I said that Pakistan may get J 10. We wold like Pakistan to buy more and more Chinese weapons. Chinese submarines and fighter planes.
And it travelled through international water. Nobody can legitimately stop them. You see our ships travel in south china sea without being intercepted. We explore oil there. So if Chinese submarine passed through international water, there is nothing to get orgasm.

 

[Arsalan]

Sometimes its not in the hands of governments. Didn't you know they have more billionaires than any country in the world and they are the only country in our region to have good relations with Jews ? How about admitting Military is running National Security and they are the ones responsible for allowing OBL to hide in Pakistan and its their Foreign Ministry which is responsible for making Dr. Shakleel Afridi centre of attention.

Foreign relations, diplomacy is all in government hands. Do not try to put the blame else where only because the current government is of PMLN.
They are not denying us the funds because of Osama, we all know that!! I guess you have missed the Indian argument and objections against the F16 procurement and all this is a direct result of that.
We will keep screwing our self as long as we keep blaming Hindus and Jews for our own weaknesses and negligence. The truth is, our foreign policy is non-existent and we suck at diplomacy, the graph has gone down under the current government. There are a lot of things that have improved as well, i admit to that but as long as our foreign relation goes, they are on a down hill journey and we better fix that right away. We are already running out of friends!!

 

[LeGenD]

Why does Pakistan spend 80 million on f16 when it can get better and more versatile fighters for 70 percent of the price with much better capabilities...even if induction costs are high for raising a new platform(due to which plans for j10b were dropped) we have inducted nearly 2 to 3 dozens new f16s....we could have saved a lot of cash....

Like America,s financial aid China was also ready to give Pakistan some discount on jet fighters....

On what grounds you are assuming that J-10 is much better then latest variants of F-16? Do you think that PAF have not evaluated J-10? They have and still chose JF-17 Thunder.

PAF wants the latest variants of F-16 because they have capabilities that JF-17 Thunder does not have.

 

[Arsalan]

there is another angle to it was well. The military guys must understand that the balance of International Relations has shifted in Asia right after indians agreed to be used as a vessel state against China militarily ever since the recent American Def. Min. visit to india.

This now changes everything. And dont even think any good from America since now this is the first of many things to come not just for Pakistan but for entire Asia as well.

This however gives us more avenues too and the Indian decision to grant them their land against China should be used to persuade the Chinese n specially Russians to seriously think to sell us more advanced stuff and build a strategic partnership as well. @Windjammer

Agreed!!
But the question is, who will do all that? By the looks of it, the people at helm of affairs are either not aware of these developments or are not interested to do anything about it, to exploit this situation. Every thing have a good and a bad side. We are currently facing the bad effects of this strategic partnership change in our region and are missing out on the gains we can have!

 

[Devil Soul]

Pakistan may study other fighter aircraft options, US told
BAQIR SAJJAD SYED — UPDATED 7 MINUTES AGO
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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has conveyed to the United States that it does not have the money to buy F-16 jets from its resources and has cautioned that if the stalemate over funding is not resolved it may consider buying some other fighter aircraft to meet its needs.

According to a diplomatic source, this was conveyed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to US Ambassador David Hale at a meeting at the Foreign Office.

The meeting was held last week before the controversy of procuring the F-16s became public.

Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, PAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman and Special Assistant Tariq Fatemi also attended the meeting.

Initially, the deal for the sale of eight F-16s to Pakistan was to be partially funded through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) with the US providing $430 million, while the remaining $270m was to be paid by Pakistan from its national resources. But after the Congressional hold on subsidising the sale through FMF, the US administration asked Pakistan to make a commitment to buy the jets from its own money.

But the Pakistan government refused to make any pledge unless the restriction on financing through FMF was lifted.

There is a perception in some quarters that the government made a mistake by refusing to make the commitment for the purchase of the fighter aircraft because doing so would not have precluded the option of financing through FMF in future.

The Pakistani commitment, it is believed, would have eased Congressional pressure on the administration, besides allowing the process for approval and appropriation of the entire FMF package to move forward. The process is being currently held back because of the very intense debate on the financing of the F-16 deal.

In view of the lingering impasse, the administration has now started emphasising on the Congress to focus on the package instead of getting stuck with one of its elements.

The FMF money for this year has to be approved and appropriated before September 30 or else the funds would remain no more available.

Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, in a media interaction on Tuesday, said Pakistan was working with the “suppliers to see what could be alternative sources of financing”.

Mr Aziz said that Pakistan would only buy the F-16s if some arrangement was worked out “otherwise we will look for some other (fighter) aircraft”.

He, nevertheless, looked optimistic about the issue being resolved and said: “We’ll be able to find some way out”. The message from the adviser looked very calculated.

It should be recalled that Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, whose committee has jurisdiction over foreign arms sales and who is maintaining the hold on the financing of the deal, had while voting in favour of the sale of the jets to Pakistan in March noted that he did not block the deal so that Islamabad is not driven towards Russian- or French-made jets.

Mr Corker had then said that he would like to maintain US leverage over Pakistan, which he described as uncertain ally, through its continued reliance on the US for maintenance of F-16s.

Despite approving the deal, Mr Corker withheld its financial component.

Among the key reasons behind the Congressional hold are concerns that Pakistan has not taken enough action against the Haqqani network; jail sentence for Dr Shakeel Afridi — the physician who had cooperated with the US in tracking Osama bin Laden; and fears about Pakistani nuclear programme.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2016

 

[Arsalan]

Hi,

Are you talking about the WOT in fata----what 'war proven' that is---there is no air to air combat---there is no surface to air missiles coming---there are no air aircraft batteries shooting at you---there are no dogfights----.

These strikes in Fata are like a video game---like any other training mission. Just like Prince Henry stated about his chopper missions---" it is like playing video games ".

Every equipment that is used by military is basically field tested as close to battle conditions that it could get to---once it is installed it is further tested during training---battle scenes are created to make sure everything works---so by default---everything in a fighter aircraft or otherwise is " battle tested "---regardless of it being the JF17---F16---J10---SU35 / 30 or whatever.

This battle tested term is an old acronym---modern technology---modern testing---modern simulators put the equipment thru real world scenarios all the time.

So---posters should re-consider using this term losely----.

No one inducts & deploys equipment that is not " battle tested ".



Hi,

You have missed the wordings of the deal signed before the start of wot.

Well sir that was a very interesting post but it was based on "if it was talking about WoT in FATA" whihc i was not "P
Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here about what i was referring too and what you are understanding. I was talking about procurement of F16 and mentioned the platform as being war proven and mature as ONE advantage among many others that the plane brings for PAF.

 

[Mssniper966]

On what grounds you are assuming that J-10 is much better then latest variants of F-16? Do you think that PAF have not evaluated J-10? They have and still chose JF-17 Thunder.

PAF wants the latest variants of F-16 because they have capabilities that JF-17 Thunder does not have.

PAF were also evaluating J10b for the same purpose.....Further more the so called "grounds" on which i am not assuming but quoting a statement of some of the jet experts, according to whom the J10 is 1/3 rd the price of f16 blk 52 and is equivalent in capabilities also having a little more qualitative advantage in some areas over the f16....regarding why Pakistan has not inducted it...refer to my earlier post...

 

[LeGenD]

PAF were also evaluating J10b for the same purpose.....Further more the so called "grounds" on which i am not assuming but quoting a statement of some of the jet experts, according to whom the J10 is 1/3 rd the price of f16 blk 52 and is equivalent in capabilities also having a little more qualitative advantage in some areas over the f16....regarding why Pakistan has not inducted it...refer to my earlier post...

Sir,

It is not just about the capabilities of the aircraft itself; equipment and gear are also important. There is something in American equipment and gear that China is not able to offer at the moment. Otherwise, PAF wouldn't have bothered with F-16s.

 

[Mssniper966]

Sir,

It is not just about the capabilities of the aircraft itself; equipment and gear are also important. There is something in American equipment and gear that China is not able to offer at the moment. Otherwise, PAF wouldn't have bothered with F-16s.

Of course, I agree with you but Airforce might have not inducted F16s without foreign aid...Equipment of China is at par with that of Russia, only Engine problems continue...so Chinese have used Russian Engines...

 

[Dr Gupta]

how USA ousted russians from afghanistan during cold war era ??
did they used there radars in pentagon and start killing russian installations??
who was supporting taliban at that time and providing assitance at that time ??

because west was afraid of increased communism

now after 9/11 islamiism

i would suggest indians don't stake your prosperity

stop supporting israel.

India always supported a 2 state solution, many Palestinian students are studying in Delhi. Israel is a important parter in defence. The issue is extremism just look what is happening on Bangladesh recently in regards to Killing minorities, secularist.

 

[Muhammad Omar]

The most interesting part of your post is that @Muhammad Omar has thanked it........ very very interesting............

well he's right you know

 

[weqi]

India always supported a 2 state solution, many Palestinian students are studying in Delhi. Israel is a important parter in defence. The issue is extremism just look what is happening on Bangladesh recently in regards to Killing minorities, secularist.

the issue is if i capture your land kill your children, rape your women, you might be extremist if not then you are i am sorry to say an animal,

this is none of muslim worlds concern how many students are studying in delhi or calcutta or washington i think it is better they are studying