The Bush administration has approved an initial shipment of two F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, less than two weeks after the United States agreed to cooperate with India in the field of civilian nuclear cooperation during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington.
The decision to provide Pakistan two older but refurbished F-16s from the US Air Force comes ahead of an expected larger sale of newer US super-sonic fighters over which technical discussions between the two countries are going on, Pakistani daily 'The News' reported from Washington.
Key US lawmakers were notified on Friday of the decision and administration officials made clear that the larger sale of newer fighter planes to Pakistan was still in the works, it said.
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Commenting on the timing of the decision, the paper quoted Congressional sources, briefed on the plan, as saying, "They (Bush administration officials) didn't want to start moving F-16s to Pakistan until after the Indian Prime Minister had come and gone."
Notifying Congress just before the start of the month-long August recess could also help "blunt any backlash among the friends of India in Congress, of which there are many," the sources said.
The White House had intially announced plans to sell F-16s to Pakistan in March. The sale had been blocked for 15 years in the wake of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.