New Delhi: The France government held up its 1.6 billion dollars sale of arms to Pakistan, reportedly under pressure from India.
The military hardware was to be used for Pakistan's JF-17 combat aircraft. The sale of electronics and missiles, under the first part of a six billion euro deal, was signed with Islamabad.
Paris is said to be concerned over whether Pakistan would be able to pay-off the huge deal amount or not. And, also worried over the safety of the sophisticated technology.
However, experts are not willing to accept India would be able to exert pressue on France to hold the deal for long.
"I don't really know how much pressure India can really exert on France because in the past we have seen that America has tremendous influence on their policies," said Hamid Gul, former DG of ISI.
"Americans have supplied us already. They have committed to supply us 18 F-16 aircraft. Any aircraft that France can put out it can be outmatched by what the Americans can do."
"We have very good relations in this field with China and we have developed JF-17 Thunder. We don't see any immediate possibility of war. Therefore we have time in which we can develop technology," he added.
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