Defense Minister Khawaja Asif clarified on Monday that his previous comments, suggesting an “imminent Indian military incursion” after last week’s deadly attack against tourists in Kashmir occupied by India, were misunderstood.
Talking with Reuters earlier in the day in his office in Islamabad, Asif said: “We have reinforced our forces because it is something that is imminent now. Then, in that situation, some strategic decisions must be made, so those decisions have been made.”
He explained that, with the rhetoric of India increasing, the Pakistani army had informed the government about the possibility of an Indian attack, although it did not elaborate intelligence or specific evaluations that led to this opinion.
Asif emphasized that Pakistan remained on a maximum alert, but would only consider using his nuclear arsenal if there was a “direct threat to our existence.”
In a separate interview in a private news channel, he said: “We should be mentally prepared that a war on the horizon is coming. The possibility is there, a very vivid possibility that we can have the war in the next day or two or three or four.”
However, he later questioned his comments during another interview in a different news channel, Asif said his comments had been misunderstood. “I think it has been misunderstood in some other channel. I have already talked to them and I have not said anything like this,” he said. “They (the channel) asked me what are the possibilities of war, so I said that the next two or three days were crucial.”
He explained that his statement should not be taken as a categorical prediction of the war that begins in a matter of days, but a reflection that “the next few days would be crucial.” He added that the channel in question was in the process of making the necessary corrections.
By reaffirming that “the danger is coming”, Asif said that it had not suggested that the conflict was inevitable. In addition, he pointed out that other countries in the region were actively working to decline tensions and avoid any contentious development.
“Pakistan is 100 percent ready to face any combat situation if the sovereignty of the country is threatened or the war is imposed,” he said. Reiterating its previous point, Asif concluded that, although there was the possibility of conflict in the next few days, the efforts were underway to avoid such a result.
