Pakistan's ex-foreign ministers united in condemning Indian warmongering

KARACHI: Pakistan’s three former foreign ministers on Tuesday deplored India’s warmongering in the wake of the Pulwama attack as a ploy on the part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to win upcoming elections in the neighbouring country.

Speaking in ARY News TV show, Off the Record, former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri said Modi’s statement should be seen against the backdrop of elections in India. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s offer to extend cooperation in connection with a probe into the Pulwama attack was absolutely right, he added.

“India stationed its troops along the frontier with Pakistan on four occasions as the two countries have already gone to war three times,” he said, claiming that US senators Lindsey Graham and John Mccain and former US diplomat Richard Holbrooke contacted him following the Mumbai attacks and said if an attack was carried out in Sindh’s Muridke town, it would help subside Indian anger.

“I felt shell-shocked after hearing them and said any attack on Pakistan’s territory would be retaliated.”

Hina Rabbani Khar, who served as foreign minister during the PPP tenure in power, said India was pursuing an anti-Pakistan agenda because elections in the neighboring country were around the corner.

“The Pulwama attack didn’t benefit Pakistan in any way. Prime Minister Imran Khan gave an appropriate reply,” she said, suggesting that Pakistan’s response to Indian warmongering should be based on convincing arguments.

Former foreign minister Khawaja Asif was of the view that the Pulwama attack is linked to Indian elections. The Indian prime minister had a history of links with the incidence of violence against the Muslims.

“Modi is seeing his defeat in the upcoming Indian elections,” he opined.

Asif lamented that the Muslims were being assaulted in India held Kashmir and their properties set on fire. Not only Muslims but Sikhs were also being killed in India, he added.