image source, Getty Images
American leader Mike Pompeo, who was the foreign minister in the Trump administration, has claimed in his book that in the month of February 2019, there was a possibility of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
So far no comment has come from the Government of India on his claim. Along with this, the Government of Pakistan has also not said anything on this issue till now.
In the year 2019, a convoy of Indian soldiers was attacked in Pulwama, Union Territory of India, Jammu and Kashmir, in which forty soldiers were killed.
India then carried out airstrikes on Pakistan in which India claimed to have killed many extremists.
What has Pompey written?
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has written in his book ‘Never Give An Inch: Fighting for the America I Love’ that this situation came after India launched an attack against extremists on Pakistani soil.
Pakistan had told after this attack that it had shot down two Indian fighter jets and captured a fighter pilot. Both India and Pakistan claim the whole of Kashmir but rule only parts of it.
India has been accusing Pakistan of promoting separatist extremist elements in the Kashmir Valley for a long time. Pakistan has always been denying this allegation.
Doomsday dawn in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The two nuclear-armed neighbors have fought three wars since independence from British rule in 1947. One of these wars has been fought on Kashmir.
Pompeo writes that ‘the world probably does not know exactly how close India and Pakistan came to fighting a nuclear war in February 2019. The truth is that I don’t even know very well. I only know that they came very close.’
Pompeo has said he will “never forget that night” when he was in Hanoi “talking about nuclear weapons with North Korea”. And, ‘India-Pakistan had started threatening each other in the decades-old dispute over the northern border of Kashmir.’
Pompeo writes that about forty Indian soldiers were killed in an ‘Islamic terror attack that was probably made possible by Pakistan’s weak counter-terrorism policies’.
After the attack, India carried out retaliatory airstrikes inside Pakistan.
After this, ‘Pakistan shot down a plane in the war in the sky and took its pilot prisoner’.
image source, ISPR
indian soldier greetings
When the call came from India
Pompeo wrote that that night he was woken up by a phone call from his Indian counterpart in Hanoi. However, he has not written the name of his counterpart.
Pompeo writes, ‘He told me that Pakistan has made preparations for a nuclear attack. And India is also considering starting its preparations. I told him that there is no need to do anything, and give me some time to sort things out.’
Pompeo writes that after this he along with US National Security Advisor John Bolton started efforts to find a solution to this problem.
He says that ‘after this I talked to Pakistani Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and told him what the Indian counterpart had told me.’
He said that ‘this is not true’. And as people feel, they also felt that India was considering the use of nuclear weapons. Due to the excellent work of our excellent teams in Islamabad and Delhi, we were able to assure both the sides in a few hours that neither side is preparing for a nuclear war.
He writes, ‘No country does what we did that night to avert this apprehension.’
In the year 2019, Pakistan-based terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed took responsibility for the attack on Indian soldiers. And India vowed to retaliate.
After this, for the first time after the 1971 war, India crossed the ‘Line of Control’ and carried out an airstrike on Pakistan’s land. India had claimed that it had killed many extremists in this attack.
Pakistan had termed this claim as fake.
image source, Hindustan Times
S Jaishankar and Ajit Doval with former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj
What did Pompeo write on Sushma Swaraj?
According to news agencies PTI and AFP, Mike Pompeo has also commented on India’s former foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and current foreign minister S Jaishankar in his book.
Pompeo wrote, “My real counterpart in the case of India was not a key figure among the decision makers related to India’s foreign policy. I worked more closely with Ajit Doval, the then National Security Advisor of India, who was with PM Modi. Close and confidant.
“My other counterpart was S Jaishankar. I couldn’t have found a better counterpart than him. I like this man. He speaks seven languages out of which English is one language which he speaks better than me.”
He writes – ‘Immediately a good rapport was established between us. I spoke very diplomatically in our first meeting that my previous counterparts were not that helpful.’
Pompeo writes that ‘Jaishankar said that he can understand why the former foreign minister, who was a politically mindless leader, did not prove to be helpful to you. On this I said be careful, I am also a mindless leader.
Jaishankar replied
Union Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has condemned the things said about Sushma Swaraj in this book.
Jaishankar has told that he has seen a paragraph related to Sushma Swaraj in Mike Pompeo’s book. And he condemns the use of disrespectful words for Sushma Swaraj ji.
He has said that I have always respected him and my relationship with him was very special.
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