India on Monday hit out at remarks reportedly made by Pakistan’s chief of army staff Asim Munir during his visit to the United States, calling them a fresh instance of the country’s ‘nuclear sabre-rattling’.
“Our attention has been drawn to remarks reportedly made by the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff while on a visit to the United States,” the ministry of external affairs said in an official statement. “Nuclear sabre-rattling is Pakistan’s stock-in-trade.”
The ministry also reminded that the irresponsible statements were made from the US, a “friendly third country”.
“The international community can draw its own conclusions on the irresponsibility inherent in such remarks, which also reinforce the well-held doubts about the integrity of nuclear command and control in a state where the military is hand-in-glove with terrorist groups.
It is also regrettable that these remarks should have been made from the soil of a friendly third country,” said the statement.
The MEA said that India has already made it clear that it will not give in to nuclear blackmail and will continue to take all steps necessary to safeguard our national security.
Government sources said Munir’s comments, delivered in Tampa, Florida, to the Pakistani diaspora, prove Pakistan is “an irresponsible state with nuclear weapons” and warned of “a real danger” of them falling into the hands of non-state actors.
They alleged the remarks were symptomatic of Pakistan’s military dominance over its democracy, adding, “Emboldened by reception and welcome by the US, the next step could possibly be a silent or open coup in Pakistan so that the Field Marshal becomes the President.”
Munir told guests at a black-tie dinner: “We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we’ll take half the world down with us,” according to The Print.
He also threatened retaliation over the Indus Waters Treaty, saying, “We will wait for India to build a dam, and when it does so, phir 10 missile sey faarigh kar dengey [we will destroy it with 10 missiles]. The Indus is not the Indians’ family property. We have no shortage of missiles. Praise be to god.”
The Pakistani army chief also taunted India over the recent Four-Day War, using the Quranic phrase Bunyaanum Marsoos to describe Pakistani fighters as a “solid wall,” and urging: “The Indians should accept their losses.”
Munir’s rhetoric echoes earlier speeches in which he called Kashmir Pakistan’s “jugular vein” and insisted that “Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan are fundamentally different nations” under the two-nation theory.
Munir was in the US for the farewell of Centcom chief Gen. Michael Kurilla, who recently called Pakistan “a phenomenal partner in the counter-terrorism world.”
In June, Munir became the first Pakistani army chief to have lunch with former US President Donald Trump at the White House, without Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif present, where he pitched Trump’s name for the Nobel Peace Prize.