 "External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. Image/X/@DrSJaishankar")
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has warned Pakistan of strikes deep inside the country if it provokes India with another Pahalgam-like attack.
In response to the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, in which 26 people were killed, India launched Operation Sindoor in the early hours of May 7 with strikes on terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK). As Pakistan attacked India in response to airstrikes, India struck more than eight Pakistani airbases and other military sites, such as radar sites and air defence unites, over the next four days.
Even though India granted Pakistan’s request for a ceasefire on May 10, Jaishankar said that India had not ended its policy of responding to terrorism with force.
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“We are not going to live with it. So our message to them is that if you continue to do the kind of barbaric acts which they did in April, then there is going to be retribution, and that retribution will be against the terrorist organizations and the terrorist leadership. And we don’t care where they are. If they are deep in Pakistan, we will go deep into Pakistan,” said Jaishankar in an interview with Politico.
Jaishankar is currently in Belgium’s capital Brussels for talks with the European Union (EU). The two sides are engaged in talks for a trade deal. Last month, an Indian official told PTI that India and EU look forward to signing an early harvest deal by July.
Jaishankar further said that more than any aircraft that India lost, the decisive part of the conflict were the destroyed and disabled airfields of Pakistan that forced it to reach out for a ceasefire.
Pakistan remains committed to terror, says Jaishankar
Even though the two sides ceased hostilities on May 10, Jaishankar said that India remains committed to strike at terrorism if and when provoked as Pakistan continues to remain committed to terrorism.
When asked if conditions that led to the last month’s conflict remain, Jaishankar said, “If you call the commitment to terrorism a source of tension, absolutely, it is.”
Jaishankar further said, “It [Pakistan] is a country very steeped in its use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. That is the whole issue.”
On the question of India losing French aircraft to Chinese platforms used by Pakistan, Jaishankar said that the effectiveness of Indian platforms is visible in the form of destroyed and disabled Pakistani airfields.
“As far I’m concerned, how effective the Rafale was or frankly, how effective other systems were — to me the proof of the pudding are the destroyed and disabled airfields on the Pakistani side,” said Jaishankar.
In yet another contradiction of the US and Pakistani claim that US President Donald Trump brokered the ceasefire, Jaishankar said that “one reason and one reason only” led to the ceasefire: Indian hammering of Pakistani airfields.
The fighting stopped on the 10th as Pakistan reached out for a ceasefire as “we hit these eight Pakistani, the main eight Pakistani airfields and disabled them”.
“And don’t take my word for it, these are images which are available in Google. You can look at those runways and those hangars which have taken the hit,” said Jaishankar.