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Pakistan: United States to Resume F-16 Sales to Islamabad The United States is preparing to resume sales of F-16 fighters to Pakistan, high-placed U.S. sources said yesterday (see GSN, May 23). U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld informed Indian Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani during a meeting in Washington last week about U.S. plans to resume F-16 sales to Pakistan, according to Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily. Indian sources close to Advani were unhappy about the U.S. decision, but did not leak information to the media for fear of damaging Indian-U.S. relations, Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily reported. In the late 1980s, Pakistan ordered 28 F-16s, but the United States embargoed arms sales to Pakistan in 1992, blocking their delivery, according to Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily. Improvements in U.S.-Pakistani relations following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, however, led to an end of the embargo. The undelivered aircraft have been kept in U.S. storage since their transfer was blocked, but Pakistan will not seek to receive those planes, preferring instead to receive upgraded models (Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, June 13). Musharraf to Visit Camp David Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush has decided to welcome Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to Camp David when he visits the United States later this month, White House officials said yesterday. Bush plans to use Musharraf’s visit, scheduled for June 24, as an opportunity to pressure him to do more to prevent al-Qaeda from using Pakistan as a place to regroup, as well as to continue to improve relations with India, officials said. While some Bush aides were worried about India’s potential reaction to Musharraf’s visit, intelligence agencies strongly supported welcoming him to Camp David because Pakistan has been an important staging ground for U.S. operations in Afghanistan, officials said. “Pakistan has been stalwart in working with us to fight terrorism, and Camp David is appropriate to the strength of the relationship,” a senior Bush administration official said (Mike Allen, Washington Post, June 13).
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