Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has on Wednesday said that Islamabad’s fighter jets transgressed into the Indian side in order to demonstrate the country’s capabilities but said the country do not want a war with India, with those kinds of “weapons” which Pakistan do not have and even cannot afford “miscalculations”.
According to ANI news report, during a briefed televised address, Khan said he understands the “pain” of those families who were the victim of the Pulwama terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14 and was also ready to cooperate with India into investigations and have talked over the issue of terrorism.
The prime minister again claimed that his government doesn’t harbour terrorism on its soil, either emanating from Pak or coming into Pakistan as the topic is not in country’s “interest”.
While referring to IAF’s strike in Balakot on JeM terror camps yesterday, Khan said Islamabad wanted to respond to yesterday’s act itself but has waited to assess the damage caused by IAF, otherwise taking strong actions would have been considered as “irresponsible” on part of Pakistan.
While claiming that no damage has been caused by IAF’s strike, the prime minister said Pakistan too didn’t want any “collateral damage” during Pakistan Air Force strike in the Indian region.
Khan said, “We merely wanted to tell India that if you can come to our territory, we too can come to your territory.”
Khan said two Indian MiG-21 fighter jets while chasing the Pakistani aircraft today’s morning, came into Pakistani air space and were them “shot down”. Khan claimed, “Their pilots are with us.”
India has said it has foiled Pakistani attempt to carry out a strike in Jammu and Kashmir, by shooting down Indian F-16 jet of Pakistan while losing one of its own jets after which a pilot went “missing in action”.
Khan said, “Now, from here where do we go? Nobody knows where a war can lead to.”
He said, “There are miscalculations in wars,” adding “considering the weapons you have and we have, can we afford miscalculation? If it goes out of hand, who will control?”
Khan said if a war starts then it will not be in the interest of either him or Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister.
Khan said, “We are ready to have a dialogue. I understand the pain of the families of victims of Pulwama incident … You (India) want any kind of dialogues on terrorism? We are ready. Better sense should prevail. We should sort out issues through dialogue.”
He told India: “But you cannot be judge, jury and executioner.”