Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday said the country may scale down the order for 75 F-16 fighter jets from United States, amid criticism over defence purchases in the face of dwindling international funds for quake relief.
"We will not buy all," Musharraf was quoted as saying by local daily Dawn when asked if the government was thinking of deferring procurement of F-16 fighter jets from the US.
He, however, did not specify the number.
Defence officials said Pakistan was currently considering two options, either to buy fewer than the originally planned 75 planes or to import an old version of the aircraft from Belgium.
A used version of F-16 deal could cost one-sixth of the price that Pakistan has agreed to pay to the US for the state-of-the-art F-16 fighter jets, a defence official said, adding a decision may be taken soon to put the American F-16 package on hold.
Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam, however, said 'so far no decision has been taken on this subject'.
Musharraf had ruled out cuts in the defence budget on Tuesday, saying the earthquake and defence were two different issues and Islamabad had no plans to cut military spending.
Opposition parties like PPP and human rights groups have criticised the government for going ahead with the F-16 dead as also the one billion dollar deal to buy Swedish Erie Eye SAAB airborne radars.
Noted Pakistan columnist, Ayaz Amir on Wednesday questioned the move to buy the jets, saying the government signed the deal to buy SAAB planes a week after the earthquake struck on Oct 8.
'It could be forgiven if this deal had been signed before calamity struck our northern mountains. But, no, it was signed in mid-October, a good seven days after the biggest quake in Pakistan's history,' he wrote in his column in Dawn.
Amir said, 'If we are dismayed by the tepid response of the international community to our need for relief assistance, we would sound more convincing if we had our own priorities right.'
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