LONDON: Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif has admitted on Sky Information that Pakistan harbours and funds terror organisations, saying that it has been “doing the West’s soiled work for many years”.
He additionally stated the Pakistan-based terror teams are “not a number of organisations” however “one single organisation religiously organised with totally different faces”.
When requested by Sky’s Yalda Hakim on Thursday evening whether or not he admitted Pakistan has an extended historical past of backing, funding and coaching terror organisations, Asif replied: “We have now been doing this soiled work for the USA for about three many years and for the West, together with Britain. That was a mistake and we suffered for that. If we had not joined the struggle towards the Soviet Union and the struggle after 9/11, Pakistan’s observe file was unimpeachable.”
Asif stated that his nation would reply “in variety” to any assault by nuclear rival New Delhi in retaliation for Pahalgam and known as on US President Donald Trump to “convey sanity to the scenario”.
“We have now already ready for it — any eventuality that takes place. We are going to measure our response to no matter is initiated by India. If there’s an all-out assault clearly there might be all-out struggle.”
He stated terror teams in Pakistan have been “used as proxies by the USA”, and earlier the identical terror teams had been handled like VIPs in Washington. “After we have been combating the struggle on their aspect within the ’80s towards the Soviet Union, all these terrorists of at the moment, they have been wining and eating in Washington. Then got here 9/11. Once more the identical scenario was created. I believe our govt then made a mistake.”
Asif claimed that Pakistan was not concerned within the lethal assault in Pahalgam and that India “staged it” to “create some form of disaster within the area, significantly for us”. “It was staged in Pulwama too,” he alleged.
“They by no means provide you with any proof for these incidents in Kashmir. They simply blame Pakistan and create a scenario for their very own benefit — it doesn’t imply Pakistan was behind it as a result of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had some linkages to Pakistan previously. We had nothing to do with it. LeT doesn’t exist in Pakistan anymore. It’s extinct,” he claimed.
“When President Clinton was there, there was a terror assault on Sikhs and it was blamed on some never-heard-of terror organisation. This time once more the people who find themselves being accused are usually not recognized and it’s an organisation now we have by no means heard of,” he stated referring to The Resistance Entrance (TRF) who’ve claimed duty for the Pahalgam assault.
When confronted that TRF was an offshoot of LeT, Asif stated: “If the mother or father organisation doesn’t exist, how can the offshoot take start?
