Pakistan’s stock-in-trade is nuclear sabre-rattling, as India slammed the irresponsible remarks made by Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir during his recent visit to the United States.
Munir, who visited the US over the weekend, warned that Pakistan would never allow India to choke the Indus River and would defend its water rights at all costs, even if it meant destroying any dam India sought to build on it.
He stated, “We will wait for India to build a dam, and when they do so, we will destroy it. The Indus River is not the Indians’ family property. We have no shortage of resources to undo their designs to stop the river.”
Munir’s comments were made at an event organised by members of the Pakistani-American community in Tampa, Florida, as reported by leading Pakistani daily Dawn.
India, which has already made it clear that it will not give in to nuclear blackmail, reacted strongly to Munir’s remarks.
The Pakistani Chief of Army Staff’s recent remarks during a visit to the United States have drawn attention to his nuclear sabre-rattling. The international community can draw its own conclusions about the irresponsibility of these remarks, which further fuel doubts about the integrity of nuclear command and control in a state where the military is closely allied with terrorist groups. Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), issued a statement on Monday expressing regret over these remarks.
Munir, as reported by the Pakistani media on Monday, visited two US cities over the weekend and flew to Belgium on Sunday after completing his second high-profile trip to the United States in less than two months.
The MEA statement also expressed regret that these remarks were made from a friendly third country. India has made it clear that it will not succumb to nuclear blackmail and will continue to take all necessary steps to safeguard its national security.
Munir’s visit to the US capital in June was overshadowed by widespread protests led by members of the Pakistani diaspora and supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. While Rawalpindi portrayed Munir’s visit as a step towards strengthening military and strategic ties with Washington, the backlash from overseas Pakistanis turned his stay at the luxury hotel in Washington into a scene of charged demonstrations.
Protesters chanted slogans accusing Munir of human rights violations, branding him as “Pakistanio ke qatil” (meaning “killer of Pakistanis”) and “Islamabad ke qatil” (meaning “killers of Islamabad”). A video widely circulated on social media showed one protester yelling, “Geedad, geedad, geedad (jackal, jackal, jackal)”, a derogatory term used to suggest cowardice and deceit. The clip quickly went viral and was described by analysts as a public embarrassment for the Pakistani military establishment.
Analysts believe that Munir’s treatment as the true interlocutor in Washington and Beijing recently highlights how far Pakistan’s military has overreached into traditionally managed domains by elected representatives.
“Asim Munir’s aggressive diplomacy abroad is only one facet of a broader power consolidation at home that has pushed Pakistan into what can only be described as a military-led ‘hybrid authoritarianism’. Behind the civilian façade, the military establishment has pulled all institutional levers to dominate the judiciary, the economy, and the legislative process,” an defence expert told IANS.
"Perhaps the most damning indictment of Asim Munir's tenure is not just the scope of his ambition, it is the cost at which it has come. Munir may go down in history as the army chief who has lost hundreds of soldiers to insurgent attacks in merely two years of his tenure. From Balochistan to the tribal hinterland of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistani troops have come under relentless assault from a rejuvenated insurgency, especially by groups like Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)," he added.
In April, India had hit out strongly at the Pakistani Army Chief for referring Kashmir as Islamabad's "jugular vein".
"See, how can anything foreign be their jugular vein? This is a Union Territory of India. Its only relationship with Pakistan is the vacation of illegally-occupied territories by that country," said Jaiswal during a regular media briefing on April 17.
--IANS