Pakistani PM warns India against attack, urges talks on Kashmir blast

ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR, India, (Reuters) - Prime Minister Imran Khan said yesterday Pakistan would retaliate if India attacked in response to a bombing in the disputed Kashmir region, which India blamed on Pakistan.

Khan added that he wanted to cooperate in investigating the suicide bombing on Thursday, when 40 Indian paramilitary police were killed in an attack claimed by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group.

Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours has risen sharply over the killing in the Indian-controlled part of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Pakistani authorities have denied any involvement in the attack and called for United Nations intervention.

But Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facing a general election by May, has come under pressure to exact revenge and has said he has given his security forces a free hand to administer a “strong response.”

Khan, in a televised address to the nation, noted the calls in India for revenge and said he hoped “better sense will prevail.”

“If you think that you will launch any kind of attack on Pakistan, Pakistan will not just think about retaliation, Pakistan will retaliate,” he said. “And after that where will it head?”

The United Nations is “deeply concerned” at the rising tensions and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is available to mediate if both sides ask, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday. Earlier, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, sent a letter to Guterres seeking U.N. involvement.

“The secretary-general stresses the importance for both sides to exercise maximum restraint and take immediate steps to de-escalation,” Dujarric said.