India calls Munir's remarks from friendly third country's soil regrettable

India on Monday slammed Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir’s nuclear threat, stating that “nuclear sabre-rattling is Pakistan’s stock-in-trade”. India said such threats reinforce the well-founded doubts about the integrity of Pakistan’s nuclear command and control where that country’s military is hand-in-glove with terrorist groups.

 

“India has already made it clear that it will not give in to nuclear blackmail. We will continue to take all steps necessary to safeguard our national security,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. New Delhi termed it “regrettable” that Munir’s remarks should have been made from the soil of a friendly third country. Munir is currently in the US, his second visit to that country in the last two months.

 

 

“The international community can draw its own conclusions on the irresponsibility inherent in such remarks, which also reinforce the well-held doubts about the integrity of nuclear command and control in a state where the military is hand-in-glove with terrorist groups,” the MEA said. 

 

Sources also pointed to Pakistan’s history since 1947. Whenever Pakistan's military has grown closer to the US, it has led to military coups and crushing of democracy. “Emboldened by reception and welcome by the US, the next step could possibly be a silent or open coup in Pakistan so that the field marshal becomes the President," said a source. The Pakistan army chief's comments are part of a pattern in Pakistan as whenever the US supports the Pakistan military, they always show their true colours of aggression, government sources said. It is a symptom that democracy does not exist in Pakistan and it is their military which controls the country, they said.

 

According to reports, including in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, Munir, in his address to Pakistani diaspora in Florida’s Tampa, made the nuclear threat. Alluding to India’s decision to put the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 in abeyance, the Pakistani army chief warned that Islamabad would destroy Indian infrastructure if they hit water flow to Pakistan. "We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we'll take half the world down with us," media reports quoted him as saying. "We will wait for India to build a dam, and when they do so, we will destroy it,” he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

 

On his second visit to the US after a gap of one-and-a-half months, Munir said these visits aim to take the relations on a constructive, sustainable and positive path. Weeks before the Pahalgam attack, Munir had said Pakistan will not forget the issue of Kashmir, asserting, "It was our jugular vein.” India had rejected Munir’s comments. It had said that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between New Delhi and Islamabad, and stressed there was no change in this. “How can anything foreign be in a jugular vein? This is a Union Territory of India. Its only relationship with Pakistan is the vacation of illegally occupied territories by that country," the MEA had said.

 

After the Pahalgam terror attack, and also subsequent to Operation Sindoor, during which Indian armed forced demolished terror infrastructure in Pakistan, the MEA had said that India would keep the IWT in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjured support for cross-border terrorism. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also said that India’s armed forces have taken the wind out of Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail.

 

During his official visit to the US, Munir has engaged in high-level interactions with senior political and military leadership, as well as members of the Pakistani diaspora, the Pakistani army said in a statement. 

 

Munir also said that Pakistan is extremely grateful to US President Donald Trump, whose strategic leadership has stopped the war between India and Pakistan as well as prevented many other wars around the world. New Delhi has been maintaining that India and Pakistan halted their military actions following direct talks between their militaries without any mediation by the US.

 

During the address, Munir added that a trade agreement with the US is expected to attract huge investments, and Pakistan has achieved significant successes on the international relations front. In June, Munir had travelled to the US on a rare five-day trip during which he attended a private luncheon with Trump. That meeting culminated in Trump's announcement of enhanced US-Pakistan cooperation in various fields, including oil exploration.

 

The Pakistani army said in the statement that in Tampa, Munir attended the retirement ceremony of outgoing commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM) General Michael E Kurilla, and the change of command ceremony marking the assumption of command by Admiral Brad Cooper. Pakistan and US officials are in talks to finalise finer details of the trade deal that includes investment commitments by Washington.