Pak army chief backs PM’S peace move with India
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa has backed Prime Minister Imran Khan’s peace initiatives with India, but warned it should not be taken as Islamabad’s weakness.
“Our new government has extended a hand of peace and friendship towards India with utmost sincerity but it should not be taken as our weakness,” Bajwa said while addressing the passing out parade of Midshipmen and Short Service Course at the Naval Academy in Karachi.
Bajwa said that Pakistan was “a peace-loving country and believes in peace”.
Lauding the efforts of Prime Minister Khan’s government to achieve peace between Pakistan and India, the army chief said peace benefits everyone and it is time to fight disease, poverty and illiteracy instead of fighting against each other.
The bilateral ties of India and Pakistan strained after the attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists in 2016 and India’s surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The relations nose-dived further in 2017, and no bilateral talks have taken place between the two neighbours.
“Wars bring death, destruction and misery for the people. Ultimately all issues are resolved on the table through negotiations that is why we are trying very hard to help bring a lasting peace in Afghanistan by supporting Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace plan,” Bajwa said.
He also warned that Pakistan is yet to get out from the terrorism or sabotage phase of an unannounced war against it.
“Like the terrorists before; the protagonists of the new threats are at times, our own people. Mostly misguided by ambitions, blinded by hate, ethnicity or religion or simply overawed by the social media onslaught, some of our own boys and girls readily fall victim to such dangerous or hostile narratives,” Bajwa said.
Referring to hybrid warfare, the army chief said information and modern technology has changed the nature of warfare now being waged and has tilted the balance in favour of those nations that have embraced the change readily.
“But frankly speaking, even that will not be sufficient as the ever-increasing threat of hybrid war, to which we are subjected to, will need a totally new approach and change of traditional mindset,” he said.