According to reports circulating in Indian media the United States government has refused to share information with India on the use of F-16 fighter jets by Pakistani Air Force during a recent dogfight with India.
“Soon after we were informed by the Indian side about Pakistan using F-16 aircraft on Feb 27, we informed the Indians that we will not be sharing any information on the subject as it is a bilateral matter between the US and Pakistan,” a US official told an Indian news outlet .
Categorizing the subject matter as solely being between Islamabad and Washington, the official said that India understood the US position, which was not India or Pakistan-specific. “If a third country tomorrow wants information about the C130 or C17 or Apaches that the IAF uses, our answer would be the same. It is a bilateral matter between India and the US,” the official added.
Earlier a US based magazine Foreign Policy had reported recently that a US count of the Pakistani F-16s determined that none of them were “missing” and all the fighter planes were “present and accounted for”. The report contradicted India’s claim that the IAF had shot down an F-16 jet in Azad Kashmir.
