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27-07-2024
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday that Pakistan is trying to stay relevant through “terrorism” and “proxy war” but its “unholy plans” will never succeed.
The nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors share an uneasy relationship and India has, for decades, accused Pakistan of backing Islamist militants fighting its rule in Kashmir, the Himalayan region both claim in full but rule only in part.
Pakistan denies the accusations, saying it only provides diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris seeking self-determination in the Muslim-majority region.
Modi’s comments came at an event to mark the 25th anniversary of India’s short military conflict with Pakistan in the Himalayan region of Kargil. The arch rivals have also fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.
They also come in the aftermath of a spate of militant attacks in the Hindu-majority Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir – as the territory is formally called with almost a dozen Indian soldiers killed this year.
Modi said Pakistan was humiliated whenever it tried to further its plans but had “not learned anything from its history”.
“I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their unholy plans will never be successful…Our brave (forces) will squash terrorism, the enemy will be given a befitting reply,” he said.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
India-Pakistan relations have been largely frozen as the two countries downgraded their diplomatic ties in tit-for-tat moves in August 2019 after New Delhi scrapped Kashmir’s special status and split it into two federally administered territories.
Ties were further strained after a suicide bombing of an Indian military convoy in Kashmir was traced to Pakistan-based militants, prompting India to carry out an airstrike on what it said was a militant base in Pakistan.
Earlier this year, Pakistan said there was credible evidence linking Indian agents to the killing of people on its soil – accusations that India termed “fake”.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said last month that India would look for a solution to cross-border terrorism, which “cannot be the policy of a good neighbor”.
India will focus on finding solutions to the border issues with China that has long strained ties between the neighboring countries, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in June (last month) after assuming charge for a second straight term.
India and China share a 3,800 km (2,400 mile) border much of it poorly demarcated – over which the nuclear-armed nations also fought a war in 1962.
They have engaged in a military standoff since July 2020 when at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed in the worst clashes in five decades.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in on Sunday for a record-equalling third term at a grand ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president’s palace in New Delhi, attended by leaders of seven regional countries, underlining the government’s “neighborhood first” policy but relations and problems with China and Pakistan were different, Jaishankar told reporters.
“With regards to China there are still some issues at the border and our focus will be on how to solve them,” he said.
India and Pakistan, which is also nuclear-armed, have fought three wars, including two over control of the disputed Kashmir region in the Himalayas.
