Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that though he understands that wars do not solve any problems, but “absolutely” believes that a war with India could be a possibility and would end in a nuclear attack.
“Pakistan would never start a war, and I am clear: I am a pacifist, I am anti-war, I believe that wars do not solve any problems,” he said in an interview with Al Zajeera on Saturday, adding, “When two nuclear-armed countries fight, if they fight a conventional war, there is every possibility that it is going to end up into nuclear war.”
“If say Pakistan, God forbid, we are fighting a conventional war, we are losing, and if a country is stuck between the choice: either you surrender or you fight till death for your freedom, I know we will fight to death. So when a nuclear-armed country fights to the end, to the death, it has consequences.”
“So that’s why we have approached the United Nations, we are approaching every international forum, that they must act right now because this is a potential disaster that would go way beyond the Indian subcontinent,” the Cricketer-turned-politician told the Qatar news channel.
Mr Khan alleged India of trying to bankrupt Pakistan by pushing it in the blacklist of FATF (Financial Action Task Force) and said, “Until recently, Pakistan had made attempts to open dialogue with India to live as civilised neighbours, to resolve our difference [over Kashmir] ... through a political settlement, but this is no longer the case.”
“We discovered that while we were trying to have dialogue, they were trying to push us in the blacklist in FATF... If Pakistan is pushed into the blacklist of FATF that means there will be sanctions on Pakistan. So they were trying to bankrupt us economically, so that’s when we pulled back. And that’s when we realised that this government is on an agenda ... to push Pakistan to disaster,” says Khan.
On having talks with India, Mr Khan said, “There is no question of talking to the Indian government right now after they revoked this article 370 of their own constitution and they annexed Kashmir illegally against the UN Security Council resolution which had guaranteed the people that they would be able to hold a referendum, a plebiscite, to decide their destiny”. (UNI)
