New Delhi, March 05: Defence minister A.K. Antony has expressed concern over the reported decision of the US to supply an array of sophisticated laser-guided bomb kits, surveillance drones and late-model F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
“Given our bitter past experience of how Islamabad used such aid against India, Washington should ensure that the latest tranche of military aid is used only for the purpose of countering al Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists and not against India,” Antony said in a statement issued on Thursday.
The statement was triggered by a news report published in the Wall Street Journal (March 2), that “Pakistan will soon take possession of a dozen American-made surveillance drones and 18 latemodel F-16 fighter jets, sharply expanding the Pakistani military’s ability to track and strike targets in remote, insurgent-controlled parts of the country.” Added to these would be the laser-guided bomb kits that Pentagon, the US department of defence headquarters, had planned to provide to the country, the newspaper had reported.
India’s concern over the supply of this tranche of weapons stems from Pakistan’s past record of deploying US-supplied weapons against India.
According to a New York Times report, Pakistan had even “clandestinely modified” Harpoon anti-ship missiles provided by the US to expand their capability to strike land targets, a potential threat to India.
The charge, which had set off new tensions between the US and Pakistan, was made in an unpublicised diplomatic protest in June, 2009 to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials, according to the New York Times report. Antony’s statement is crucial in many respects. First, the fact that the defence minister was chosen by the government to reflect India’s position on the new arms sales to Pakistan instead of the external affairs ministry sent a message that New Delhi’s newest prickliness is less pro-forma and more genuine concern.
This fact was underlined by the knowledge that Antony is not known to favour the US in particular. So, one could easily read more sharpness in the story. Of course, it may be a fact that the ministry of external affairs did not want to complicate its position with respect to Pakistan when a dialogue process had begun between the two countries. But one cannot fail to notice that sales of surveillance drones to Pakistan were actually promised by the US defence secretary, Robert Gates in January, when India had ignored the issue. Even when the The Wallstreet Journal had done a story on fresh US arms sales to Pakistan and India on the day two foreign secretaries were to meet last week, there was not a murmur from India.
What changed between then and now is the bombing of the two guesthouses in Kabul where nine Indians were killed. Even though the Hamid Karzai government is still speculating about Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’s hand in the killings, Richard Holbrooke, the US President’s special envoy on Af-Pak, issued a statement on Wednesday giving a clean chit to Pakistan.
This, and Pakistan’s fresh attempt at re-hyphenating itself with India by asking the US to maintain “balance of power” in South Asia, as articulated by its foreign secretary, Salman Bashir, in New Delhi could have raised hackles to the extent that Antony was brought to the fore.
More worrisome for New Delhi could be the fact that the Journal report makes it seem that Washington is rewarding Islamabad for its heightened desire to cooperate in the battle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The minister’s statement clearly showed the government was not willing to accept the argument that by selling latemodel F-16s, the US was merely helping Pakistan’s army to kill its own people. Antony reflects a new weariness creeping into the Indo-US relationship.
—Agencies