In his televised address to his nation, Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan said that he will highlight the Kashmir issue on the world stage when he will speak at the UN General Assembly on September 27. “We have succeeded in internationalising the issue of Kashmir, we talked to world leaders and embassies. UN for the first time since 1965, convened a meeting on the Kashmir issue. Even international media has picked it up,” claimed Khan. Furthermore, Khan said that the Pakistani military is vigilant to thwart any ‘misadventure by India’.
He added, “If conflict moves towards war then remember both nations have nuclear weapons and no one is a winner in nuclear war and it has global ramifications. Superpowers of the world have a huge responsibility, whether they support us or not Pakistan will go to every extent.”
Notably, Khan’s address to the nation comes soon after PM Modi and US President Donald Trump’s meeting on the sidelines of G7 Summit, wherein the Indian Prime Minister stated that Kashmir is a ‘bilateral’ matter between India and Pakistan. Contrary to PM Modi's statements on fighting poverty and uplifting poor, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a nuclear threat to India. He called India's decision on Kashmir a "historic blunder".
Meanwhile, India has said nuclear war cry is Pakistan's "standard" tactic. "It is standard Pakistani tactic. What the Pakistanis have failed to do is translate this engagement into mediation. There is a fundamental distinction between engagement and mediation and the latter is what Pakistan has always failed to achieve," Vivek Katju, former secretary, MEA, said.
While Khan has repeatedly sought his intervention and mediation in the crisis and attempted to leverage Washington’s need for Pakistan for the US exit from Afghanistan, Modi conveyed to Trump that Khan’s intemperate tweets had befouled the atmosphere. Modi added that bilateral talks between India and Pakistan would be considered only if Imran dialled down the rhetoric and rolled up and prosecuted the terror networks in Pakistan that launched repeated attacks on India.
