One cannot tie Pakistan’s hands and keep India’s open: DG ISPR

Maintaining that one cannot tie the hands of Pakistan and keep India's open, the Director General (DG) of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor said that Pakistan is willing to take steps towards non-proliferation of nuclear arms only if India does the same.

In a recent interview to Russian news agency Sputnik, the DG ISPR said Pakistan will undertake anything which is based on equality. "You cannot tie Pakistan’s hands and keep India’s open. Anything that happens should happen for both countries," the DG ISPR told the agency.

DG ISPR contended that the country was ruling out the possibility of Pakistan using its nuclear weapons and said that it was 'insane' to discuss the use of nuclear weapons. He further said that Pakistan sees the use of nuclear weapons as more of a deterrence tool to prevent actual wars.

The DG ISPR also rejected India's claim that Pakistan had used American-made F-16 jets to shot down Indian aircraft in February. He also said that the PAC JF-17 Thunder combat aircraft which was jointly developed with China were used.

"The aircraft which engaged those targets and fought them were JF-17. As regard to how to use F-16, in what context [they] were used or not — because at that point of time our entire Air Force was airborne — now it remains between Pakistan and the US to see how the MoUs regarding the use of F-16 have been adhered to or otherwise," the director general said.

He further said that Pakistan had decided to respond to Indian aggression of the Line of Control keeping in mind not to threaten civilian lives. He added that Pakistan wanted to show India its capability to hit military target, but in the interest of peace, it had only showed the neighbor its capability.