Deputy Prime Minister\/Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar warned on Tuesday that the ceasefire between Pakistan and India could be jeopardized if the water dispute stemming from India\u2019s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is not resolved. In an interview with CNN, Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan had no intention of deploying nuclear weapons against India, emphasizing that Islamabad\u2019s retaliatory strikes on May 7 were carried out strictly in self-defense following unprovoked Indian cross-border attacks. He described India\u2019s operation against Pakistan as a \u201cwar\u201d and a \u201cwishful attempt to establish its hegemony\u201d in the long-disputed Kashmir region. However, he firmly stated that \u201cthe nuclear option was never on the table.\u201d \u201cThere are certain times when you have to take very serious decisions,\u201d he said, \u201cWe were very sure that our conventional capacity and capabilities are strong enough that we will beat them both in air and on ground.\u201d While the ceasefire has held for now, Dar cautioned that comprehensive negotiations between the two sides have yet to take place. \u201cWe still hope sense will prevail,\u201d he said. When asked what led to the ceasefire, Ishaq Dar told CNN that \u201cIt is in the interest of everybody to not delay or to leave such issues beyond a certain reasonable time.\u201d \u201cThe Indians had seen what happened in the sky,\u201d he added. \u201cThey could see how serious the damage was.\u201d Contradicting earlier claims made by India\u2019s Director General of Military Operations, Dar said there was no direct contact between Indian or Pakistani officials for ceasefire. Instead, Dar said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio passed on the message that India was ready to stop the fighting. Dar emphasised that Pakistan was looking forward to establishing a path for long-term peace and security that would provide \u201cdignity for both sides.\u201d He identified Kashmir as \u201cthe root cause of regional instability\u201d and called for the region\u2019s \u201cfuture self-determination.\u201d He reiterated Pakistan\u2019s condemnation of terrorism \u201cin all forms and manifestations\u201d and denied any Pakistani involvement in Pahalgam attack. Dar also expressed appreciation for U.S. support, saying President Donald Trump supports Pakistan\u2019s antiterrorism efforts. \u201cIf they didn\u2019t believe (in our efforts), they would not have cooperated the way (that they did),\u201d Dar said, referencing Trump\u2019s social media post on \u201cfinding a solution\u201d to the Kashmir conflict. Speaking about the Indus Waters Treaty, which India has unilaterally suspended during the latest tensions, Dar warned that the already precarious ceasefire could be threatened \u201cif the water issue is not resolved\u201d in the coming talks. He added that Pakistan\u2019s position is clear: India must reverse its suspension of the treaty. Failure to do so, he warned, \u201cwill amount to an act of war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Deputy Prime Minister\/Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar warned on Tuesday that the ceasefire between Pakistan and India could be jeopardized if the water dispute…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24494,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}