India-Pak were close to a nuclear war after Balakot strike: former US state secretary
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New York: India and Pakistan were about to use nuclear weapon in 2019 in the midst of the tension after a suicide bombing killed 41 CRPF jawans in Kashmir, claims the former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
Mike Pompeo’s new book “Never Give an Inch” released on Tuesday describes how he intervened to avert an otherwise cataclysmic incident.
"I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019," he wrote.
The former CIA chief, who was Donald Trump's top diplomat at the time, also gives an account of his meeting with North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.
India blamed a terrorist group for the suicide bombing CRPF personnel before launching airstrike inside Pakistan, news agency AFP reported.
As the situation escalated India shot down an F-16 craft while Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane capturing the pilot.
The went on to narrate that Pompeo who was in Hanoi for a summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un received an emergency call from a senior Indian official.
Pompeo wrote that the official was concerned about Pakistan preparing it nuclear weapons and India was “contemplating its own”.
Asking the official to do nothing, he went to on say that US diplomats convinced both India and Pakistan that neither was preparing for nuclear war.
The likely future presidential contender, Pompeo wrote that Pakistan “probably enabled” Kashmir attack, and went on to describe Pakistan’s army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa as “the actual leader of Pakistan”.
Speaking highly of India, Pompeo expressed his ‘desire’ to ally with India in countering “Chinese aggression”.
His first conversation with Kim Jong Un turned out to be chilling when Kim told him “ I didn’t think you’d show up. I know you’ve been trying to kill me”.
Pompeo retorted in lighter vein: 'Mr. Chairman, I'm still trying (to) kill you,'" AFP quoted from the book.