Pakistan PM and US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. (Reuters photo)

WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: The US is reopening the military aid spigot to Pakistan within a week of Prime Minister Imran Khan meeting President Donald Trump , with the Pentagon notifying its decision to approve $125 million worth of technical and logistics support for Pakistani F-16 fighter jets .

The aid resumption, made at the "request" of Pakistan, was disclosed by a Pentagon notification to the US Congress on Friday. The notification, however, said the proposed foreign military sale would provide "24/7 end-use monitoring" of the F-16s, with 60 US contractor representatives being stationed in Pakistan to assist in the oversight of the programme.

The Pentagon simultaneously notified the US Congress about the proposed $670 million follow-on support programme for the 11 C-17 Globemaster-III strategic air-lift aircraft of the Indian Air Force , in what was interpreted in New Delhi as "not a mere coincidence" and "re-hyphenisation of India and Pakistan".

US officials emphasised that the restoration of the F-16 support programme does not mean the Trump administration is resuming military aid to Pakistan and there is no change to the security assistance suspension announced by the President in January, 2018.

But American mandarins have said Imran Khan's visit was aimed primarily at "incentivising" Pakistan to help the US troop drawdown in Afghanistan. Trump himself stated he was ready to restore the $1.3 billion annual aid the previous Obama administration had lined up for Pakistan - and which Trump suspended - if Pakistan did the right things.

India is apprehensive that Pakistan will yet again play the Americans for s*****s, as it has done so often in the past, given that Washington has a notoriously short memory and a fickle foreign policy outlook that is all the more capricious under a President who marches to his own drumbeat.

India, of course, would have preferred the total freeze to continue. "But our concerns would be somewhat addressed if the proposed sale indeed leads to greater end-use monitoring of Pakistan's F-16s. Remember Pakistan also deployed F-16s in their intended retaliatory strike on Indian military installations on February 27, a day after IAF jets bombed the JeM facility at Balakot ," said a senior Indian official.

Pakistan currently operates 75 of the F-16s, which were acquired in batches under the pretext of the global fight against terrorism , and later upgraded with advanced radars, targeting systems, fire-and-forget missiles and precision-guided munitions. "Some would also have been configured to deliver nuclear weapons," said another Indian official.

By some accounts, the US has given Pakistan nearly $80 billion (adjusted for current value of dollar) in aid since the country was carved out of united India in 1947. The assistance, particularly military aid, has increased manifold whenever the US finds itself in a sticky position in the region - often caused by Pakistan's policies -as it did during 9/11 when Pakistan-sponsored Taliban sheltered Osama bin Laden and the perpetrators of the biggest terror attack on America.

India worries that Washington is repeating the same mistakes, including restoring Pakistan's primacy over Afghanistan that allowed it to become a stomping ground for terrorists.

Moreover, both Pakistan and North Korea were partners who helped each other in nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology under China's benign tutelage, which has already been forgotten in the current bromance between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un .

The missiles North Korea tested last week were described in the US media as "projectiles" even as Trump played down the provocation. "They're short-range missiles and my relationship is very good with Chairman Kim, and we'll see what happens," Trump told reporters, adding, "They're short range missiles, and many people have those missiles."



In Video: US approves sales to support Pakistan's F-16 jets