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N-blackmail part of Pak strategy, says Jaitley in US
WASHINGTON: India is calling out Pakistan’s tendency to demand the world’s attention holding a gun to its head, raising the bogey of a “nuclear neighbourhood”, as
WASHINGTON: India is calling out Pakistan’s tendency to demand the world’s attention holding a gun to its head, raising the bogey of a “nuclear neighbourhood”, as has been the strategy of special envoys sent by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the US to press Islamabad’s case on Kashmir.
“Emphasising that the two countries are nuclear powers and therefore there is nuclear blackmail involved, is a Pakistani strategy,” Finance minister Arun Jaitley told NDTV in an interview on his arrival here for the annual World Bank group meetings.
That’s precisely what Sharif ’s envoys — lawmakers Mushahid Hussein and Shezra Mansab Khan — have sought to do in their meetings here, specially those open to public: raise the bogey of a dangerous nuclear neighbourhood.
Arguing for urgent attention on Kashmir, Hussein said at an event at Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank on Wednesday, “It’s come back with a bang and it’s more significant because you’re dealing — as President Clinton called in 1993 — a nuclear flash point — potential nuclear flash point.” He added, “Two nuclear neighbours, we should learn to talk to each other rather than talk at each other.”
His colleague Khan took a similar tack at Stimson Center, another think tank, on Thursday.
Asked to name the single most important issue for Pakistan at present, she said, “Our core issue at this time is Kashmir. No peace can prevail if this issue is not solved.”
And, she went on to argue, it was an “international dispute and not an internal problem”, which must be resolved urgently. She added, for emphasis, “The stakes are very high. We are a nuclear neighbourhood.”
Neither Hussein nor Khan pointed out that this “nuclear neighbourhood” is keenly aware of that because of repeated threats of a nuclear war from Pakistan. “We will destroy India if it dares to impose war on us. Pakistan army is fully prepared to answer any misadventure of India,” Pakistani defence minister Khawaja Asif said recently, adding, “We have not made an atomic device to display in a showcase. If such a situation arises we will use it and eliminate India.”
