India’s arms build-up will force Pak to take deterrence: Sharif
24 Oct 2015 12:05 AM GMT
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday kept up his attack on India and warned that Pakistan will have to take “credible deterrent” measures in the face of Indian “arms build-up” and “dangerous military doctrines”.
“While refusing dialogue, India is engaged in a major arms build-up, regrettably with the active assistance of several powers. It has adopted dangerous military doctrines.
This will compel Pakistan to take several counter measures to preserve credible deterrence,” Sharif said in his address to the US Institute of Peace (USIP), a US Congress top American think-tank.
Sharif claimed that after coming to power two-and-a-half years ago, he has made several “sincere efforts” to improve relationship with India.
“I accepted his (Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s) invitation to attend his swearing-in ceremony New Delhi,” he said.
The momentum this generated was scuttled when India cancelled the NSA-level talks on “flimsy excuse”, he alleged.
In his address, Sharif blamed India for narrowing the talks to just one issue of terrorism after his meeting with Modi at Ufa, Russia in July.
“The cancellation of NSA-level talks have been followed by increased ceasefire violations by India across the Line of Control (LoC) and the working boundary, and a stream of hostile statements by Indian political and military leadership,” he alleged. The NSA-level talks scheduled for August 23 in New Delhi were called off at the last minute, after India made it clear that Pakistan’s insistence on holding discussions on Kashmir and a meeting with separatists will not be acceptable to it. Sharif also said anti-Pakistan actions by Hindu extremist groups in India have exacerbated the present tension in the region.
He was apparently referring to incidents targetting Pakistanis in India by Shiv Sena activists, who stormed the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai and forced cancellation of a meeting between the cricket chiefs of the two countries.
Earlier, they threatened organisers of a show by legendary Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali in Mumbai, forcing them to cancel the event.
Sharif heckled during speech at US think-tank
Washington: Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was on Friday heckled by a protester who demanded to free the restive Balochistan province where activists say army is engaged in abductions, torture and killings.
As Sharif began delivering his address at the US Institute of Peace, a prominent independent think-tank here, a protester raised slogans including “Free Balochistan” besides calling him a “friend of (Osama) Bin Laden”. The man was also holding a poster that read “Free Balochistan”.
He was taken out of the auditorium by the security forces following the incident that forced the visiting premier, Sharif, to pause briefly and then resume his address.
Sharif, currently on his second bilateral visit to the US, on Thursday met US President Barack Obama.
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