Former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani warned Washington that the F-16 fighter jets it is going to sell Pakistan will be utilized against India rather than militants.
“Unless Pakistan changes its worldview and its compulsive competition with its much larger neighbor even in violation of international commitments, American weapons will end up being used to fight or menace India and perceived domestic enemies instead of being deployed against jihadists,” said Haqqani.
The former ambassador, currently serving as director of South & Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, alleged that Pakistan’s not being able to deal with its extremist challenge shows an absence of will instead of weapons.
He requested the US lawmakers to not let military and civilian hardliners in Pakistan to fulfill objectives of unwinnable competition with India.
“The US government has been giving the signal that Pakistan is too important for the US to ignore, which reinforces all of Pakistan’s wrong policies. These are policies that both the US and a significant section of the Pakistani intelligentsia would like changed,” added Haqqani.
Earlier, it was reported in October this year that Obama government was considering to sell eight new F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan so that it could tackle the terrorists in the region effectively.