Pakistan’s Army Chief General Raheel Sharif has warned “enemies” that they will have to “pay an unbearable cost” for aggression.
Speaking at a function to mark the 50th anniversary of the India-Pakistan war of 1965 at the Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi on Sunday, he said Pakistan was “fully capable of defeating all sorts of > external aggression .” “If the enemy ever resorts to any misadventure, regardless of its size and scale — short or long — it will have to pay an unbearable cost.”
The reference to > “short or long” wars was in response to Indian Army Chief Gen. Dalbir Singh’s remarks at a seminar last week, stressing the need to prepare for the “swift, short nature of future wars.”
Gen. Sharif also referred to Kashmir as “the unfinished business of Partition.” “Without resolving the issue according to the aspirations of Kashmiris, peace in the region is not possible,” he said.
Rejecting Gen. Sharif’s comments, the government asserted India’s claim on all of Jammu and Kashmir. “The only issue with Pakistan is to get back parts of Jammu & Kashmir under its illegal occupation,” Minister of State in PMO Jitendra Singh said.
Speaking to journalists in Bhopal, the Minister of State for External Affairs and former Army Chief, V.K. Singh, said: “If someone is shouting needlessly, let them. When it is time for action, India is completely capable.”
Significantly, the >bellicose comments have been made with the backdrop of events organised to mark the 1965 war anniversary.
While Pakistan has traditionally marked September 6 as ‘Difa e Pakistan’ day (Defence of Pakistan Day) to commemorate the defence of Lahore after Indian forces took key posts outside the city, the NDA government decided to celebrate the war anniversary this year as a victory for India for the first time.
