Janjivan Bureau / Washington: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif has warned India against launching a surgical strike on the country’s nuclear installations, saying if that happens, nobody should expect restraint from Islamabad.
“Yesterday, the Indian Air Chief said we will hit, through another surgical strike, Pakistan’s nuclear installations. If that happens, nobody should expect restraint from us. That’s the most diplomatic language I can use,” the Dawn quoted Asif as saying at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.
India’s Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa on Thursday said the Indian Air Force (IAF) had the capability to “locate, fix and strike across the border” in response to a question about handling the tactical nuclear weapons of Pakistan, at the annual press conference in New Delhi.
According to the report, Asif urged Indian leaders not to consider such actions as those could have dire consequences.
The new South Asia policy announced by U.S. President Donald Trump does not account for the multiple dimensions of the Afghanistan situation and by solely focussing on Pakistan’s alleged support to the Taliban, the U.S. is setting itself up for defeat, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said on Thursday. He was speaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Mr. Asif, who met U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster on Thursday, said that the meetings were “not bad”, but acknowledged that there was trust deficit between the two countries. He said that even if one were to concede that Pakistan is supporting the Taliban and giving it shelter, there were several more serious issues — internal to Afghanistan — that make its route to stability difficult.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan became strained on August 21 this year when President Donald Trump announced his new strategy for South Asia and squarely blamed Pakistan for sheltering terrorists in safe havens. He also threatened to stop economic and military assistance to Islamabad and offered India a greater role in Afghanistan, ignoring Islamabad’s concerns.
