Pakistan offers peace... but threatens war with India

Pakistan wants peace with India. Indeed, it is willing to engage in unconditional talks with New Delhi, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in London on Monday. This is a significant shift as Pakistan’s earlier position was to demand restoration of autonomy in Jammu and Kashmir as one of the pre-conditions for talks before the Indian government’s abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019.

The former Pakistan foreign minister, who was leading a Pakistani delegation to Western capitals to explain Pakistan’s stand on Operation Sindoor and the Pahalgam terror attack, however, also threatened that Pakistan would go to war if its share of river waters was denied by India in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty between the two countries. He made those assertions while speaking on ‘The path towards lasting peace and stability in South Asia’ at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a major think-tank in the British capital.

At another interaction at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (better known as Chatham House) where this correspondent was not present, the Pakistan delegation is believed to have claimed that the US assured Pakistan that it would persuade India to hold a comprehensive dialogue if Pakistan took the initiative for a ceasefire. Some of those who were present at Chatham House claimed that the delegation specifically named US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as making the commitment that the US would convince India.

Bhutto Zardari is leading a nine-member Pakistani delegation, including four women, to counteract India’s recent diplomatic offensive, following the unspeakable incident in Pahalgam, Kashmir on 22 April wherein gunmen singled out Hindu men and massacred 25 of them (along with a local pony operator), and India’s military response to this outrage by way of Operation Sindoor.

He looks a wee bit older than his 36 years because of a slightly receding hairline. He is also a grandson of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and son of Benazir Bhutto, both of whom were prime ministers of Pakistan, before being executed under martial law and killed in a suicide attack respectively.

"The delegation I lead has been given a mission of peace," he declared at IISS. "We are advocating to the international community to play their role in encouraging a dialogue, a comprehensive dialogue between India and Pakistan, where Pakistan is ready to talk about all issues."

Answering a question from Rahul Roy Chowdhury, senior fellow for South and Central Asian defence, strategy and diplomacy at IISS, he clarified, "Before this conflict broke out the foreign minister of Pakistan (Ishaq Dar) had publicly stated in a press conference here at our high commission in the United Kingdom that Pakistan was keen to engage in dialogue with India."

The Pakistani delegation’s pitch for peace, it was noticed, was in marked contrast to the all-party delegation from India, which spoke of India having exhausted its patience with Pakistan and defending the doctrine of militarily punishing Pakistan for every act of terror.

Bhutto Zardari could not help parroting the oft repeated Pakistan Army hardline that Kashmir is the 'unfinished agenda' of Partition, but hastened to add that Pakistan is prepared to discuss terrorism and the Indus Waters Treaty, which India put in abeyance after the Pahalgam attack. He stressed, "The threshold for conflict between two nuclear armed powers, between India and Pakistan, is drastically, drastically at its lowest point ever."

He explained, "As it stands today, if there’s a terrorist attack anywhere in India, proof or no proof, we go to war. That is the de facto position of the new abnormal that India is trying to impose on the region. The equivalence would mean that if there’s a terrorist attack in Pakistan, we have to go to war with India. That is a very untenable situation to be in."

He went on to say that Narendra Modi’s new doctrine is "lowering the threshold for conflict, a potentially nuclear armed conflict". He suggested the issues between the two nations can "only be solved by dialogue".

Replying to David Bowen, earlier with the British ministry of defence and NATO and now an associate fellow with IISS, who also chaired the event, Bhutto Zardari claimed Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire after the four-day hostilities last month "with the view that going forward, there would be at a neutral location a dialogue on all friction points". The Indian government has denied any such understanding.

Bhutto Zardari also claimed, "Pakistan has been very successful in countering cross-border terrorism," citing that against anti-India groups operating in its territory, "Pakistan has taken exemplary action". This action, he argued, "had been endorsed by the FATF (the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force)" in moving Pakistan from its ‘grey list’ to its ‘white list’. He rattled off that 549 individuals have been convicted and over 80 organisations proscribed by Pakistani authorities under its anti-terrorism legislation.

Those figures could not be verified at the time of filing. However, in October 2022, FATF announced that Pakistan is ‘no longer subject to' its 'increased monitoring process’, with the caveat that it ‘will continue to work with’ FATF ‘to further improve’ its systems.

Also while tackling another query from Roy Chowdhury, Bhutto Zardari charged that India "after having gone to war, still to this day cannot tell the world who the (Pahalgam) terrorists were".

The Pakistani leader's appearance at IISS was preceded by a similar lecture and Q&A at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and followed by meetings with two groups of former parliamentarians and an interview with the BBC.

India’s all-party delegation team led by BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad was conspicuous for its rather ill-conceived itinerary. The most important person the delegates met was the speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle.

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Ashis Ray can be followed on X @ashiscray. More of his writings can be