Islamabad: Pakistan is considering buying used F-16 fighter jets from Jordan, media reported on Tuesday, after a plan to buy eight of the aircraft from the U.S fell through because of the refusal of the U.S. Congress to finance the deal.
Some of Pakistan’s fleet of F-16 jets are due to be decommissioned in the next few years and the government says it needs the aircraft to fight Islamist militants in remote mountains near Afghanistan.
The military also sees the aircraft as vital in case of war against old rival India. The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
“We are now going for a third-party transfer of F-16s and have an offer from Jordan,” Defense Secretary Alam Khattak told a joint sitting of the Senate defense and foreign affairs committees on Monday.
An air force spokesman declined to say how many F-16s Pakistan has but the number of the aircraft in service is believed to be about 70.
Jordan had offered to sell Pakistan 16 used F-16s of the Block-30 variant, an older version than the Block-52s that Pakistan would have obtained from the United States, the Dawn newspaper reported.
The U.S. deal, valued at $699 million, came unstuck after the U.S. Congress refused to authorize the use of U.S. government funds to pay for the aircraft under the Foreign Military Financing program.
Members of the U.S. Congress had demanded that Pakistan stop harboring militant groups, like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network, which are leading an insurgency against a U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
