ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari warned on Monday the threshold for war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan had significantly dropped following last month’s military standoff during an interview with an international news outlet.
India and Pakistan engaged in their most intense military exchange only a few weeks ago, prompting fears of a full-scale war under the nuclear overhang. Over four days, both countries traded missile strikes, drone attacks and air combat before US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire on May 10.
The crisis erupted after a militant assault killed 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan-based elements, a charge Islamabad strongly denied, calling instead for an impartial international investigation.
As the situation escalated, the global community moved quickly to ease tensions and avert the risk of a nuclear confrontation.
“At the moment, the threshold for conflict between India and Pakistan is the lowest than it’s ever been in our history,” Bhutto-Zardari said in an interview with Sky News in London. “We’ve achieved the ceasefire, but we have not achieved peace as it stands today.”
“If there’s a terrorist attack anywhere in India or India-occupied Kashmir, proof or no proof, that means war,” he added. “That’s not a tenable situation. Pakistan believes there needs to be dialog and diplomacy, where we discuss all issues — terrorism, Kashmir, water — and start moving forward.”
Bhutto-Zardari said Pakistan had long advocated peace through dialogue, as he pointed to India’s refusal to engage diplomatically.
He also criticized New Delhi’s position on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a World Bank-brokered agreement signed in 1960 governing water rights over rivers shared by the two countries.
While India has not stopped water flows entirely, he said, it had delayed releases, a tactic, which he noted, could devastate Pakistan’s agricultural output.
“Even a week’s delay in water supply can destroy crops in a country like Pakistan, which depends heavily on agriculture,” he said, warning that any move by India to build new canals or dams on rivers allocated to Pakistan would cross a red line.
“That would be war,” he said.
Bhutto-Zardari further rejected the idea that Pakistan harbored militant groups involved in cross-border militancy, noting the country had taken significant action under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) framework, a global watchdog that monitors money laundering and terrorism financing.
“When I was foreign minister, Pakistan was on the FATF grey list. By the end of my term, we had successfully moved off that list,” he said, calling the removal an endorsement by the international community of Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts.
Responding to Indian claims over the recent Kashmir attack, he reiterated that Pakistan had no role in the incident and challenged New Delhi to present credible evidence if it had any.
“They went to war with a nuclear power and still cannot name a single terrorist involved,” he said. “If India was being honest, we’d know who they were, where they came from, which border crossing they used. These are basic questions that remain unanswered.”
Bhutto-Zardari is currently leading a nine-member Pakistani delegation to various world capitals to present Islamabad’s position on the recent conflict with India.
The delegation held meetings in recent days with representatives of the United Nations, its member states and US officials before arriving in London a day earlier to continue its mission.
