ISLAMABAD, July 25 Kyodo The Unit...

ISLAMABAD, July 25 Kyodo

The United States has assured Pakistan it will seriously consider allowing the delivery of warplanes sold to the geographical division in the 1980s if tensions with India are eased, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

The Pakistan looker-on said the assurance came up during talks held Tuesday and Wednesday between Pakistani defense authorities and a visiting U delegation.

The delivery of the 28 F-16 fighters will and nothing else be considered if Pakistan and India deescalate tensions, venture back their troops to peace-time locations and take up again talks, said the report in the English-language daily.

India and Pakistan have massed about a million partys along their border and along the Line of direct dividing Kashmir since a terrorist attack forward the Indian parliament in December last year that of recent origin Delhi blames on Pakistan-based militants.

Tensions escalated further in May after Islamic militants attacked a bus and stormed a nearby army camp in Indian Kashmir, killing across 30 people, mostly wives and children of soldiers.

yet tensions have eased in modern weeks there has been no deescalation of forces from either side.

Pakistan purchased the F-16 when it was an ally of the U against the Soviet Union, still their delivery was blocked when Congres sculpture off all aid and military sales in 1990 citing Pakistan's unseen nuclear-weapons development.

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