Renewed tension between India and Pakistan after Pakistan’s newly appointed army chief General Asim Munir warned that any “adventurism” on the part of the neighboring country would be met with “full force”.
Munir, who recently took over from his predecessor General Qamar Javed Bajwa, issued the warning during his visit to the Line of Control, the de facto border dividing the disputed Kashmir valley between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
The visit comes less than a week after General Munir assumed the position of the seventeenth commander of the Pakistani army in a ceremony held at the general headquarters in the city of “Rawalpindi” of the Punjab province (northeast) on November 29 last.
The new warning came after separate statements by Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and Lieutenant General Abendra Dwivedi, Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Command of the Indian Army, about the status of the disputed Kashmir region and the Gilgit-Baltistan region bordering China.
- Advertisement -
In a decisive tone, the Pakistan Army chief, in a statement, said, “Any misconception that leads to misadventure will always be met with the full force of our armed forces backed by a strong nation.”
Monir, who previously served as the country’s head of the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), added that India would not be able to achieve its “nefarious” designs.
Emphasizing his country’s position, Munir pointed out that “Pakistan’s army is ready to defend its territory if it is attacked.”
The Pakistani official also urged the international community to ensure “justice and fulfillment of what was promised to the Kashmiri people under the United Nations resolutions.”
And last October, Singh said, in a statement, that he hoped to control the Gilgit-Baltistan region (GB) soon to complete the task begun by the Bharatiya Janata Party government to annex Indian-administered “Kashmir” in August 2019, which angered the community. international, especially Islamabad’s longtime ally, China.
Echoing Singh’s statement, Dwivedi said last week that “the Indian army is fully prepared to implement the government’s decision”.
Responding to the recent Indian statements, the Pakistani army chief said, “We have noticed very irresponsible statements from the Indian leadership about the Jammu and Kashmir region and the Gilgit-Baltistan region.”
He added: “Let me make it categorically clear that the armed forces of Pakistan are always ready, not only to defend every inch of the homeland, but to return the fight to the enemy, if war is imposed on us,” according to the same statement.
The name Jammu and Kashmir is given to the Indian-controlled part of the Kashmir region, and it includes groups that have been struggling since 1989 against what it considers an “Indian occupation” of its regions.
The people of the region have been calling for independence from India and joining Pakistan, since the independence of the two countries from Britain in 1947, and Islamabad and New Delhi sharing the region.
