Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said that Islamabad would never begin a war with India amid heightened tensions between the two countries ever since New Delhi revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. The prime minister reiterated his stand that a war between the two nuclear-armed countries would have no winners.

“We will never ever start the war,” Khan said at an event of the Sikh community at the Governor’s House in Lahore. “Both Pakistan and India are nuclear powers and if tension escalates the world will face danger.” He also said that war was not a solution to any problem and that the winner would also be a loser.

He said that a war would give rise to a host of other problems, and that if one decided to resolve a problem with war, they did not care about the world. “If you solve one problem with war, there are four other problems that would crop up because of it,” Khan said. “It takes years for a country to recuperate from the impact of a war.”

The Pakistani prime minister also criticised the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideology and said that it wanted a Hindu nation. Khan brought up the instances of lynchings in connection with cows in India.

India and Pakistan have engaged in a war of words ever since the former decided to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status on August 5. Islamabad retaliated by suspending bilateral trade and downgrading ties with New Delhi. It has raised the matter at the United Nations Security Council, and threatened take it to the UN Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice as well.

Khan has repeatedly hit out at the Narendra Modi-led administration for imposing a security lockdown in the state. He has, on multiple occasions, suggested that the escalating tensions could lead to war, and on one occasion said there was no point talking to India though he has also advocated for normalising relations with India and called for dialogue.

Now, follow and debate the day’s most significant stories on Scroll Exchange.