Doubts confirmed: Indian defence minister’s comments shock Sartaj

Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar says that India will use terrorism to counter terrorism from other countries

ISLAMABAD:

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz has expressed serious concern over the statement made by Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that India will use terrorism to counter terrorism from other countries.

“This statement [of Parrikar] only confirms Pakistan’s apprehensions about India’s involvement in terrorism in Pakistan,” Sartaj was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the foreign ministry on Saturday.

It must be the first time that a minister of an elected government openly advocates use of terrorism in another country on the pretext of preventing terrorism from that country’s non-state actors, Sartaj said.

Pakistan sincerely pursues a policy of good neighbourly relations with India, he added. “Terrorism is our common enemy and it is vital for the two countries to work together to defeat this menace, from which Pakistan has suffered much more than almost any other country.”

According to the Press Trust of India, Parrikar has asserted that terrorists have to be neutralised only through terrorists. “India will take proactive steps to prevent a 26/11 type attack," he said.



Speaking at an event in New Delhi, the minister used the Hindi phrase ‘kante se kanta nikalna’ (removing a thorn with a thorn) and wondered why Indian soldiers should be used to neutralise terrorists.

The proactive steps, he said, could include pressure tactics. "We have to neutralise terrorists through terrorists only. Why can't we do it? We should do it. Why does my soldier have to do it?” he said and added that the issue could not be discussed beyond this.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2015.