‘We will go deep into Pakistan' if provoked
Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said the root causes of New Delhi's conflict with Islamabad remain unchanged and that India is ready to strike anywhere in Pakistan if provoked by terrorist attacks.
In an interview with Politico in Brussels on Monday, Jaishankar claimed that Pakistan is openly training a large number of terrorists, estimated to be in the thousands, and deploying them to carry out attacks against India. '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,' he said. 'And we don't care where they are. If they are deep in Pakistan, we will go deep into Pakistan.'
He was referring to the recent military showdown with Pakistan, in which India launched strikes on suspected terrorist facilities in Pakistan-controlled territory on May 7 in response to a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April. The hostilities ended on May 10 when a ceasefire was announced.
In the Politico interview, Jaishankar said the Indian military's air capabilities, including fighter jets and missiles, caused significantly more damage to the Pakistani Air Force than Pakistan had inflicted on India. The Indian foreign minister also spoke of New Delhi's efforts to boost its domestic manufacturing of arms and ammunition. Referring to Indian-made weapons, he said, 'some of them have been tested in the recent conflict with Pakistan' and have been 'very successful.'
Jaishankar went on to say that some Indian defense companies want to work more with Europe with regard to design, though he does not see this as 'just buying more weapons from Europe.' The foreign minister also touched upon the Ukraine conflict, stating that India has never sought a role in it. 'If we can be of any help … we are open, but we are not pushing ourselves,' he said. Jaishankar added that India has been acting as a conduit between the two sides, keeping lines of communication open and occasionally relaying messages.
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