ISLAMABAD: France has agreed in principle to sell 40 Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Pakistan.

The agreements which also include sale of submarines minesweepers and radars were made during the visit of the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to France.

With this defence deal Pakistan has entered the world arms bazaar in a big way since uncertainty prevails over early resumption of suspended American military aid.

Islamabad change of shops for its arms purchases comes in the wake of broad hints from Washington that the “10-yr-long honeymoon in the Pakistan-US relationship is now all but over” the Dawn commented in an analysis. Diplomatic sources in Islamabad said the recent visit to the US by the Pakistan army chief had failed to break fresh grounds in the normalization of bilateral relations which have been under strain for the last 15 months.

In October 1990 Washington halted economic and military aid of over US $560 million on the suspicion that Pakistan was going ahead with its weapon-oriented nuclear program.

The U.S senator Larry Pressler during his visits earlier this month to New Delhi and Islamabad had confirmed western reports that Pakistan possessed nuclear devices.

The Dawn said that between 1979 and 1989 all the three Pakistan defence services were armed with U.S.S weapon systems creating an additional debt burden of about $1.5 billion

It said Islamabad had paid an-other $1.5 billion for this equipment from its own source.

In order to maintain the defence capability of the armed forces at its current level Pakistan would need over $300 million annually making it a prospective arms buyer the daily said.

The warming up of defence ties between Pakistan and France has also been evident from the three missions sent to Islamabad by Dassault the makers of the Mirage aircraft for parleys on the monetization of the existing Mirage fleet with the Pakistan air force this is besides exploring the possibility of striking a Mirage 2000 deal.

Islamabad had been examining options to strengthen its air power following set-backs to the hopes: of a patch-up with Washington. Supplies of a new batch of 60 F16s and spare parts for the existing fleet of F-16s have been stopped a blow from which Islamabad is still trying to recover.

The news in a report from Paris said the Pakistan air force would carefully evaluate the Mirage2000 deal before making a final decision

It quoted the Pakistan air chief Air Marshal Farooq Feroze Khan who accompanied Sharif as sayng that “The air force wants to know more about the aircraft and apart from considering its capability it also had to examine the: financial implications”.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 31, 1992