Harpoon modification by Pak taken very seriously: US

The US has taken very seriously the reports about illegal modifications made in the Americanmade Harpoon antiship missile by Pakistan to expand capabilities to strike land targets a potential threat to India even as Islamabad has agreed for mutual inspections This is something that we take very seriously We have raised the issue with the Pakistani government The Pak government has responded with an agreement in principle for mutually agreed inspections the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs PJ Crowley said when asked about a news report published in The New York Times In a news report published August 30 The New York Times quoting unnamed American official said the US has accused Pakistan of illegally modifications in the Harpoon antiship missile to expand its capacity to strike land targets a potential threat to India Between 1985 and 1988 the Ronald Reagan administration delivered 165 Harpoon missiles to Pakistan In this particular case we have some concerns We shared them with the Government of Pakistan The Government of Pakistan has been responsive Crowley said We would wait and see if those inspections can address the concerns that we have raised he said The US has also accused Pakistan of modifying Americanmade P3C aircraft for landattack missions Both are violations of the US law including the Arms Control Export Act I am not going to talk about specific issues brought up in the story We watch this closely These are important agreements This is not about any one country With any country with which we exchange our defence articles we have this kind of agreement Crowley said When we have concerns about how those systems should be used we raise these concerns with the appropriate governments he noted The violation by Pakistan were first noted by the American intelligence agencies on April 23 The New York Times said when Pakistan had an unannounced suspicious missile test that appeared to give the country a new offensive weapon While Pakistan has denied those charges The modified version of the missile would be a significant new entry into Pakistans arsenal against India as these would enable its small navy to strike targets on land in India this complementing the sizable landbased missile arsenal that Pakistan has developed Since early this year when the Obama administration had proposed to triple the nonmilitary aid and also increase its military assistance to Pakistan a number of US lawmakers have been making similar charges against Pakistan and demanding that any military aid to the country should be conditional The Congress is in the final stages of taking a decision on providing 75 billion in civilian aid to Pakistan The latest expose has the potential to derail this the daily said