Foreign

Interview of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to Azerbaijan Qasim Mohiuddin with APA

- Hello. Dear Mr. Ambassador, what are the main causes behind the current tensions between India and Pakistan?

- A little over two weeks ago, India started blaming Pakistan immediately that Pakistani backed militants were involved in this. My prime minister, the government asked the Indian government that to provide evidence we even conveyed our readiness to be part of any international impartial inquiry.

So far we have not received any response from India. And neither has the world community or the UN has received any response from India on this. What I understand is even the terrorists have not been traced or caught by the Indian government so far.

But this question goes a little deeper because it just shows the mindset of the. Of the Indian current fascist regime of Narendra Modi who uses any opportunity to start leveling allegations against baseless allegations against Pakistan. Whenever there is political challenges being faced in India.

Even now there are elections being planned to be held in Bihar in which BGP is struggling. So whenever there are political issues, such false flag operations happen.

- You mean that it can be used as a political leverage?

- It is used as a political leverage. In 2016, an incident happened in Uri in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir. It was a false flag operation. In 2019, Pulwama was happened and that was also false flag operation.

So whenever there's any problems politically, the BJP government uses this. And the reason for this is that the BJP government's mindset is a very fundamentalist Hindutva mindset. It's a very fascist mindset.

That mindset is not just against Muslims in India. That mindset is against any religious minority in India. And I'm sure majority of the Hindu population does not agree with what prime minister Modi's thinking is on this.

But unfortunately this is the regime in power. And everybody around prime minister Modi right now, from his national security advisor to his defense minister all are very anti religious minority and anti muslim. So there is no voice of reason around Mr. Modi right now.

- What's Pakistan approach to this situation? What steps are being taken toward a peaceful resolution?

- From day one we have showed restraint. We have neither gotten into warmongering or any rhetoric of hate against India.

We have tried to be as logical and as rational and as peaceful as we can be with India. But unfortunately what they did on the middle of the night, when they illegally violated our territory, that I think will lead to some decisive response because safeguarding the civilian population and the territorial integrity of Pakistan is paramount for the government. So the immediate reaction was in self defense of forces acted when the Indian aggression started.

And we shot down five of their fighter aircrafts, including three French Rafaels, which India was very proud of, that they are 4.5 generation. And now this morning even the French authorities have admitted that one of you know, the Rafael went down.

And this is the first time a 4.5 generation aircraft and a Rafael has been shot down during combat. So we also shot down a Sukhoi 30.

We shot down a MiG 29 as well. And we shot down several, several drones. This morning my country is again under attack by India.

As of right now, we have shot down 25 drones, Indian drones. So now when their air force pilots are not even ready to come up in the air to, you know, fly the aircraft, what they're doing is they're sending these UAVs, drones, reconnaissance drones, either to test our patients or to test our defense. God knows I'm not a psychiatrist, so I really can't comment on Mr.

Modi's state of mind or his government state of mind. But as per the UN Charter, Article 51, Pakistan reserves the right to respond decisively. And we will at the time and place in the method of our choosing depends on you.

We have to in this, we were attacked by India. So as any country has the right to to self defense, we will do so accordingly.

- In response to India's military strikes, what actions has Pakistan taken or plans to take for the future?

- Well, I will not telegraph what we intend to do vis a vis our military response. But as I mentioned, losing five aircraft, their top notch UAVs is a big hit. I mean just this, these hits are close to a billion dollar loss to India. And not to mention their air force is not ready to even fly now.

This is why they're sending in UAVs. So as of specific actions, there's a broad spectrum available to, to Pakistan armed forces and we will counter this aggression appropriately.

- What risk does a confrontation between two nuclear states pose to a region and the world?

- Anyone with the same mind would not even consider aggression when they know both countries are nuclear armed. But unfortunately there is only one person in this world right now and his cabinet, and that is Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India who is. And their cabinet is talking openly and threatening Pakistan with a nuclear war.

This itself is a war crime. It's. It's a form of international terrorism that will threaten another country with nuclear weapons.

Our response is guarded. Nuclear weapons are not something that are something very trivial. They are very devastating weapons.

And in case of a nuclear holocaust, there are no winners. So I think sanity prevents in the Indian government and they stop this rhetoric because for the past one and a half days they are getting our response appropriately. Their planes are being shot down like flies.

So I think, you know, I hope rationality and sanity prevails in the Indian government.

- What's your opinion on the role of the UN and other international organizations? Do you find their involvement effective?

- The UN Secretary General has tried to play a positive role in this. OIC is also trying to play a positive role in this.

But I think the words now need to match the action now needs to match their words as well. The world really needs to think about whether they can trust a rogue state like India, an irrational leadership like India, and now a fascist regime like India? Are they even capable of trust for having nuclear weapons? So having said that, we would welcome any and all voices of peace and reason to stop Indian jingoism and the course that they have taken.

- What's your opinion and what measures are being taken to protect civilians from the consequences of the conflict?

- You see, in our case, we are, we are at a slight disadvantage.

We are not as careless as the Indian armed forces. Our forces are very professional. They're battle hardened.

When Indian troops fire on civilians, they don't care who gets killed because they're all Muslims, Pakistanis over here. So they could not care less. But when it comes to our response, I mean, we have to be careful because at the other end of our, you know, when we, when we fire, there's a human being.

It can be a Muslim, a Hindu or a Christian. It doesn't matter to us. But there's a human being over there, there's a civilian over there.

We don't want to cause any such damage to Indians. I mean, the population, they have, they have done nothing wrong. There is one fanatical person in power in India right now who has a blood thirst for Muslims.

So having said that this makes our response. I won't say soft but we have to be very careful. We cannot be as cruel as the Indians are.

But having said that, in the past one and a half days we have destroyed their brigade headquarters, we have destroyed their posts, we have destroyed their ammunition facilities. But again we do not want the conflict to escalate. So our response is also being in self defense.

Even the five aircraft we shot were all those aircraft which launched payloads against Pakistan. There were other Indian aircraft in the air.

We did not engage them because they are not fired by then. So even now the experts, the Indian Air Force and other, well, Indian Air Force, I won't say is an expert. They are more of a joke than anything else.

But I mean, anyway, the international defense experts who know, they know what, what we did, how we countered the electronic warfare, how we jammed their systems and how we shot them down. So this itself shows that we have the capacity of engaging multiple targets across the entire border area. So again, I really hope that the Indian army is able to, or Indian forces are able to talk some sense.

And Mr. Modi understands that this is not a Bollywood movie. This is real life.

And real innocent Indians might also get killed because of what Mr. Modi is doing.

- In your opinion, what would it take to achieve long term peace between India and Pakistan?

- There's only one path to peace. Deal peace. And that is sincere dialogue on the matter of Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan and the Kashmiris. The issue of Jammu and Kashmir is the longest issue on the agenda of the Human Security Security Council right now.

Pakistan has always desired peace, not just with India, with all our neighbors and around the world. I mean, no country would want conflict. So the only solution is first off, India reversing the illegal and unilateral measures that they have taken, especially with regards to the Indus Water Treaty, the suspension of the Indus World Treaty.

That needs to be reversed immediately and their aggression needs to stop immediately. And long lasting peace cannot happen without dialogue. Even, you know, battlefields do not resolve issues.

Look at your case, I mean, with Armenia, after such a long and illegal occupation of the territories by Armenia, you won the war. And this is why Azerbaijan wants Armenia to amend its constitution and disband the OSC group.

So every wise statesman and every peace lover knows that in the end there has to be dialogue. That is, that is the only solution for lasting peace.

Elnur Babayev

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