Tuesday, March 29 2005 20:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Criticising the US decision to supply F-16 warplanes to Pakistan and the offer of sale of similar planes to India, BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) today (Mar 29, 2005) said it smacked of promoting arms race in the region and accused the Government of airing "discordant" views on the issue.

"The Government's handling of the issue has much to be desired. The Government is speaking in discordant voices and does not have a well considered approach" on the US announcements, senior BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told reporters in New Delhi.

He said that while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had expressed "great disappointment" on F-16 deal to Pakistan, the External Affairs Ministry had conveyed a different message.

Even yesterday, he claimed that the Prime Minister said he did "not know what is being offered to India" and added "This amounts to saying 'I don't know what is happening."

On the other, the BJP leader said, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said the Government was considering the US proposal. Mukherjee should state "how, when and why was the decision to 'consider' F-16s as an option taken," he said.

Singh termed as "illogical" and a "strange proposition" the argument of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the supply of fighters to Pakistan was being resumed because relations between India and Pakistan were improving.

Referring to the US offer of sale of F-16 or F-18 planes to India, he said, "we are not in a queue for alms" and objected to Washington's attitude of "unko (Pakistan) F-16 diya to inko (India) F-18 de do (we have given F-16 to them, give F-18 to the other).

The US offers, he said, would amount to "promoting arms race in the sub-continent."

On the US argument that it wanted to enable India become a super-power, Singh said, "India will become a super-power on its own talent, capability and efforts."

"I find it patronising that any country should make such a statement," the BJP leader said.

Noting that Washington and Islamabad were free to develop military relationship and sell or buy any military hardware, he, however, said Washington should tell the world what had changed to make it resume supplies of the F-16 fighters to Pakistan.

He said the delivery of F-16 fighters had been withheld by the US mainly on the grounds of "weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation" and "terrorism-promotion" by Pakistan.

"The US State Department, therefore, needs to now let the world, particularly India, know about the improvement that has been demonstrated by Pakistan, notwithstanding the A Q Khan, Iran, North Korea and such other matters being public knowledge," he said.

Noting that US had business interest behind the offers, Singh said, "It will be useful for countries in South Asia to beware of falling in the spiral of arms race promoted by an outsider."

The main Opposition party, however, said that India and US have a "healthy and evolving" bilateral relationship covering political, economic, strategic and as also military which needs to be "constantly tended, nurtured and promoted by both the countries."