ISLAMABAD: Despite a recent spike in tensions on the Kashmir border, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday called for an end to a long-running arms race between Pakistan and India, and a stop to a decades-old ‘blame game’.
“We have been in a very unfortunate arms race with India ever since partition. Both Pakistan and India have wasted so much money in military hardware and building up their defenses against each other,” Sharif told British newspaper the Telegraph in an interview.
“They have been running after MiG-29s, we have been running after F-16s; they have been buying more tanks and we have been running after submarines. Look at how expensive they are,” he said. “I think this must come to an end.”
Sharif said his government, which was swept into power in the May 11 general elections, believed in peacefully resolving ongoing conflicts with India to cut down defense spending.
“The money wasted in defense should have gone into social sectors…into education, healthcare. I hope both countries realise…these mistakes that we’ve made. And I think the main objective of making peace with each other is to get rid of all that,” he said, referring to the staggering amounts spent on military expenditure of both South Asian neighbours.
Sharif said both countries needed to reduce their defence budgets, but that this could not be a one-sided action. “We have to do it together, and India will also have to do it.”
The Pakistani prime minister’s statements come amid rising tensions between the two states, with both sides accusing each other of ceasefire violations at the Line of Control (LoC), the heavily militarised border in Kashmir.
But in his interview to the Telegraph, Sharif also called for a stop to the regular exchanges of accusations in what he described an age-old “blame game”.
“This blame game has been going on again. This blame game has also been going on for 67 years. Anything going wrong in India, they blame us. Anything going wrong in Pakistan, we blame them. And I think this blame game has to stop,” he said.
“This is what we’ve witnessed in the past. This is what, unfortunately, I'm witnessing on the Line of Control. And then India accuses Pakistan…for allowing its soil to be used against India.”
Although the Pakistani premier pointed out reports of a ‘hidden hand’ in terrorist activities in Pakistan, he tried to frame his words cautiously.
“Our sources also tell me that there is a hidden hand of India in certain disturbances going on in Pakistan, and the acts of terrorism that take place in many parts of Pakistan. This information comes to me from time to time,” he said.
But when asked by the interviewer if the reports were credible and if he believed them, he replied: “Actually I don’t want to go any further on that.”
“This must stop,” he said, referring to the blame game.