Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday joined issue with his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif saying there is no possibility of Pakistan winning any war against India in his lifetime. Singh’s statement came in response to Sharif’s remark on Tuesday that Kashmir was a flashpoint between the two countries and it can trigger a war.
“There is no scope of Pakistan winning any such war in my lifetime,” Singh said during the Navy Day celebrations. “Kashmir is a flashpoint and can trigger a fourth war between the two nuclear powers at anytime,” Sharif was quoted as saying by the Dawn daily in his brief address to the budget session of the ‘Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) Council’ in Muzaffarabad on Tuesday.
Sharif’s office, however, later denied that he made any such statement and termed the report as “baseless, incorrect and based on malafide intentions,” adding the Pakistan Prime Minister had never “uttered these words.” The Press statement issued from his officer, however, quoted Sharif as saying the Kashmir issue should be settled according to the aspirations of the people and the UN resolutions as peace in the region was not possible without it.