A man at an anti-Musharraf rally protesting against his policies, saying he is turning Pakistan into a secular state, in Peshawar on Monday. (Reuters)

Islamabad, March 28 (PTI): Pakistan has hinted that it plans to buy from the US about 70 F-16s of the latest variety at a cost of about $3 billion.

A team of American defence experts is expected to be here soon to discuss the modalities of the sale of the fighter aircraft.

Air marshal Kaleem Sadat said his country would be eyeing the latest block 50/52 C and D type models. Each aircraft is expected to cost around $35-40 million. Unofficial estimates based on previous fleet requirements of the Pakistan Air Force put the figure close to 70 planes, the daily Dawn quoted air force officials as saying.

Sadat said Pakistan might go in for the fourth-generation fighter aircraft.

The number of the aircraft, Sadat added, ?depended on as much as we need. Pakistan is playing an active role with the US in the war against terrorism and that was why the US government has agreed to give us the aircraft?.

In Karachi, President Pervez Musharraf was quoted by the state-run PTV as saying that the US decision to sell F-16s to Pakistan will ?increase the country?s strategic capability?.

?It will also help our strategy of defensive deterrence,? Musharraf said in his first reaction to the US decision.

US ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker said the ?mode of the payment, avionics and other systems to be fitted in the planes would also be determined after discussion by experts of the two countries?.

Crocker was quoted as saying in The News that ?since the planes are to be manufactured afresh, I cannot give a time frame for the start of supply?. He said there was no ceiling on the number of F-16s Pakistan intends to buy though officials in Washington had initially said Islamabad would be given 24 of the fighter jets.

Islamabad could also use the $3-billion assistance announced by Bush in 2002, half which was for the economic and social sector, Crocker said.

Asked about the US offer of F-18s to India, Sadat said: ?We have to see our pocket and our needs before getting any aircraft. Prices of aircraft vary from model to model and aircraft to aircraft and getting an aircraft is based on the fact how much and what type of aircraft our security requires.?