Daily Times

ISLAMABAD. Lashing out at the Indian government for backing atrocities in Held Kashmir, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif on Monday said that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of the Indian army was spilling the blood of innocent people through an indirect strategy.

“India is unwilling to address historical disputes like Kashmir, which directly fan misunderstanding and feed into persistent regional culture of conflict.”

He was addressing a conference of the Chiefs of Staffs of the Armed Forces being held under auspices of US CENTCOM in Stuttgart, Germany, where he had gone on a daylong trip, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

In his address, General Raheel highlighted the regional security environment, common challenges and way forward for the participating countries.

He said that Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts had turned the tide against terrorism in the country, adding that Pakistan was the biggest victim of terrorism both in terms of human lives and finances.

While elaborating the concept and success of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the army chief said that Pakistani security forces had valiantly fought terrorists upfront through an across-the-board, indiscriminate operation against terrorists of all hue and colour along with their abettors, financiers and sympathisers. He said that with unflinching support of the entire nation, terrorists’ ideologies and their narrative had been defeated, and their sanctuaries and hideouts completely eliminated.

“Our efforts against residual threat are still continuing,” he said, adding that the threats could not be entirely eliminated without optimum cooperation among neighbouring countries.

The army chief said that the success of the ongoing counterterrorism operation was a common dividend, which should be optimised and shared.

He also offered the participating countries to benefit from Pakistan’s initiative and experiences in terms of regulation of cross-border movement, socio-economic development of border regions and enhanced cooperation in terms of intelligence sharing.

“Porous Western border and existence of some exploitable spaces; inadequate border management that allows terrorists move; lack of synergy, coordination and institutionalised mechanism of intelligence sharing still remain our challenges,” he said.

He said that those challenges were being exploited – through confrontationalist and subversive approaches – by hostile intelligence agencies like the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of the Indian army, which “spills blood of innocent people through [an] indirect strategy”.

General Raheel offered unlimited and sustained support to all participating countries in the conference, particularly Afghanistan.

He emphasised that route to a peaceful and prosperous region “runs through a stable Afghanistan, which is achievable through comprehensive and coordinated approach”.

Beside the host, US CENTCOM Commander General Joseph Votel, chiefs of armies of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, participated in the conference.

They expressed their desire to improve multilateral military cooperation amongst their countries in order to coherently meet the emerging security challenges and jointly defeat the menace of terrorism comprehensively.