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The supply of arms to Pakistan would not come in the way of United States having strong and good relations with India, the State Department has said.
"There should be no question that you can have good relations with one country and sell arms to another country. It's not a mutually exclusive proposition, and nor should it be," State Department deputy spokesman J. Adam Ereli told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
There is no contradiction between having strong, good relations with India and meeting the Defence needs of other countries through the sale of US arms, he said.
"Our arms sales policy, I think, is clear, governed by US interests and congressional legislation, it's transparent, it's publicly notified, and we've done that in the case of the recent transactions in question," he said.
When a correspondent said that US arms have in the past been used by Pakistan only against India, the spokesman said, "I'm not interested in getting in a debate with Indian officials about US arms sales policy."
The Pentagon had recently notified
the Congress of a possible 1.3 billion dollar arms package for Pakistan,
including eight P-3C Orion planes, in the largest US foreign military sale
to the country since sanctions against Islamabad were lifted in late 2001.
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