The US government is committed to providing F-16's aircraft to Pakistan as it considers it a legitimate defence requirement of Pakistan, Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasneem Aslam said here on Monday.
In her weekly press briefing she said that the US government has assured Pakistan that it was going to do everything to get the F-16's sale deal through the Congress and make it effective as soon as possible.
"The US administration has already formally notified the Congress about the deal, which requires 30 days period to consider and approve the deal," she added.
Tasneem said "we understand that the public hearing has been scheduled and an under-secretary is going to brief the congress about it."
She said that no special legal covers or sureties have been sought from the USA in the deal since Pakistan does not think that there would be any revocation of the deal as in the past.
She said that Pakistan does not entertain any suspicion that the deal will not be honoured as the US administration has requested the Congress to approve $738 million in economic support fund (ESF) and foreign military financing (FMF) for Pakistan. FMF amount is the same ie $300 million, which was committed at Camp David.
NO DATE FIXED The spokesperson said that Pakistan had extended an invitation to the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to visit Pakistan, which had been accepted. However she said that though no date has been fixed for this visit, it would definitely take place sometime.
She said that Pakistan wants the Indian Premier's visit result oriented so that the two countries could move forward in the bilateral dialogue and resolve their disputes and differences. "If the Indian leadership also wants to see some tangible results from this visit that is a good development," she added.
She said that the foreign secretaries of the two countries are scheduled to meet on the 20th of this month to review the third round of confidence building composite dialogue. However, she said that the foreign ministers of the two countries are not meeting as already scheduled, since the Indian counterpart is not available for talks.
Tasneem said "we are very keen that the Kashmiris on both sides of Line of Control (LoC) should be able to have trade, meet each other and we are fully committed to it."
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