DG ISPR Major General Babar Iftikhar, Hilal-e-Imtiaz (Military) was commissioned in 6 Lancers in March 1990. He has commanded an Armored Brigade, an Infantry Brigade in North Waziristan, during Operation Zarb-e-Azab, and an Armored Division. He took over as DG ISPR with effect from 1 February, 2020. Managing editor, Najma Minhas, sat with him for an interview after Pakistan submitted irrefutable evidence on Indian state sponsored terrorism in Pakistan to the United Nations, in the form of a dossier.
GVS: You and the Foreign Minister did an excellent job in presenting a detailed dossier with solid facts on Indian sponsorship of terrorism in Pakistan. What is the response been so far from the international community?
DG ISPR: Well, let me start from the 5th of August 2019. Whatever actions Indian government took, the revocation of Article 370, the special status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Ever since then, India has received a lot of negative press, and the issue has been very well supported by the Pakistan Government the way it has been taken up on different International forums.
So, this is an ongoing thing, they were already receiving a lot of flak on this thing, but when this dossier came out, frankly it was a vindication of what Pakistan has been saying for so long. It gave all the proofs, evidence of the Indian government, India as a state, sponsoring terrorism inside Pakistan, and it has been taken very seriously by the international community.
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The world has taken note of it, the world is talking about it, and despite India's best efforts, there has been a lot of objective analysis of what's been said. I think the objectivity of the debate around this dossier, the contents of the dossier, at the international level is a major plus and we are going to take it forward from here.
GVS: What are your next steps?
DG ISPR: Well, after the presentation of the dossier, the foreign office presented it to the P5. It has been presented to the United Nations Secretary-General, and now you have seen the latest statement from the OIC forum, the FM attended. It has been a very strongly worded statement by the OIC about what is happening in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, so here on, we are going to take it to every possible forum. And a lot of effort has been put into this, and it's not just a one-off thing. There has been a series of actions that have been taken after that.
GVS: So, one of the things I found the most shocking in this dossier was the anti-CPEC cell which is directly reporting to the prime minister Narendra Modi. Given an initial outlay, according to the dossier, of $500 million and has raised 700 militiamen to disrupt the CPEC corridor. What is the nature of the threat that you are facing here, and how will you ensure the security of the corridor?
DG ISPR: Well Indians see CPEC as a game-changer for the region, and it is a game-changer for the region. Its offering connectivity to the region and with that Pakistan becomes a connectivity hub for this whole region, and I think this is a game-changer, in a sense that this project has the ability, the potential, to bring prosperity to this whole region by connecting with everyone. It's not just a North-South thing, for Pakistan, it's an economic project, and that's what the project's name also says China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
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The kind of threat that it is facing from the Indian, obviously they have started with the security threats that we are facing; there is a lot of terrorist activity going on around it. They have also started bringing in some very strange arguments about where it starts from and where it ends, and how Indian's are not very comfortable with the project passing through certain territories in Pakistan. So, the security threat around the project at different stages of the project has been increasing with time.
Somewhere Indians decided that there is a timeline beyond which this project becomes irreversible, and they feel that the progress of this project must be retarded as much as possible so that it doesn't cross that timeline and it can be somehow stopped.
GVS: So you are saying that Indians fear this project as a game-changer and that it will bring prosperity to the region. So that I can clearly understand this, are you saying that Indians are against the prosperity of the region? Is that why they are destroying CPEC?
DG ISPR: If they are not willing to let this project progress, then that's what they are trying to do, over here.
GVS: The dossier also mentions that there are terrorist camps in Afghanistan, have you had conversations with the Afghan leadership over this?
DG ISPR: We keep having these conversations with the Afghan leadership, there is a proper mechanism about it, and frankly, we have always acknowledged that the Afghan government has capacity issues, because of that we never really blamed the Afghan government for what is happening from the Afghan soil. So we keep sharing this information with them.
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It's a regular thing, and similarly, the kind of information we have revealed in this dossier that has also been shared at the appropriate levels and connected to this since this particular zone is also being used to target the CPEC, what we have done to keep this project secure we raised two divisions for the security of this project and other than that we have about 8-9 regular regiments also protecting this corridor, the project, at various locations from wherever it's passing through, in addition to that there are paramilitary troops which are also deployed.
So, we have taken every possible measure to keep this project secure, and our Chinese partners are also very satisfied with the kind of security measures that we have taken.
What they [Indians] are really targeting is the international image of Pakistan when they try and target CPEC. There have been terrorists who are being used to target this project, continuously targeting the Chinese manpower involved, they tried to do that, they are trying to target the local labor who are working for this project, so there are a lot of dimensions to the kind of security threats that this project gains, but Alhamdulillah, the kind of measures that we have taken, they have not been able to retard the progress of this project. They have not been able to dent it, and it's progressing more every day.
GVS: I would like to bring you to the LOC right now, we are seeing a high level of LOC violations by India, also including use of heavy military equipment which we have never seen happen before. Diplomats are talking about a new grand design. What are your thoughts?
full interview: https://www.globalvillagespace.com/dg-ispr-gen-babar-iftikhar-on-pakistan-fifth-generation-warfare/
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