Pakistan and US have a love-hate relationship. US in its new found love for chicanery riddled India had started growling at Pakistan. But, over 60 years of trust between Pentagon and GHQ, cannot be ignored. Trust is like blood, it is thicker than water. Despite, its policy tilt towards India, US is well aware of Indian back-stabbing and double dealing. As they say in US, they knew where their bread is buttered. In Pakistani colloqialism, US is not a Phuddho Phatta. On the other hand, Pakistanis have felt a deep sense of anger and betrayal by the US. The killing of our 24 young lions cannot be forgotten or covered by such gestures. This gesture will be appreciated and will go a long way to repair the tattered relationship. However, let us not dance till the fat lady sings. Pakistan needs to see more of such gestures, including release of all items in FMS pipeline, especially, the F16 D Fighter jets. Pakistani people starve but pay for these weaponary with hard cash. This brings jobs to US workers suffering almost 10-11 percent unemployment. So, this gesture will be win-win for both the nations.
ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani navy took delivery Tuesday of two state-of-the-art, US-made surveillance aircraft nine months after Islamist militants destroyed two similar planes, officials said.
Pakistan said the P3C aircraft, modified with the latest avionics, are designed to improve surveillance in the North Arabian sea, one of the world’s most important shipping routes deeply troubled by Somali piracy.
“The two aircraft have been delivered to the Pakistan navy. These aircraft have been provided under the foreign military funding programme,” a spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad, told AFP.
Relations between Pakistan and the United States were severely damaged last year by a covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the alliance remains tense.
The navy said the aircraft would help “maintain requisite vigil in our vital area of interest in the North Arabian Sea”, which it said was “home to intense maritime activity both legal and illegal and thus warrants continuous guard”.
Pakistan is to receive six P3C aircraft from the United States in three batches. The first two, received in 2010, were destroyed during a 17-hour siege of a key naval base in Karachi last May blamed on the Taliban.
The attack killed 10 personnel and deeply embarrassed the military, just three weeks after bin Laden was killed in the garrison town of Abbottabad.
