Washington: Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed in a book released on Tuesday that there was a threat of nuclear war between Pakistan and India in 2019 but US intervention prevented things from getting worse.
In his memoir "Never Give An Inch" of his time as Donald Trump's top diplomat and former CIA director, the potential future presidential contender wrote, "I don't think the world properly knows that the India-Pakistan rivalry How close it has come. Turned into a nuclear explosion in February 2019."
In February 2019, India broke with tradition when it launched airstrikes inside Pakistani territory to make up for a suicide bombing in Kashmir that killed 41 Indian paramilitary personnel. An Indian warplane was shot down by Pakistan and the pilot was captured.
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Pompeo, who is in Hanoi for the summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, claimed that a senior Indian official had made an urgent wake-up call to him.
He thought that Pakistan had started preparing its nuclear arsenal for attack. He told me that India was looking forward to its own growth," Pompeo wrote.
Pompeo said, "I told them not to do anything and gave us a minute to sort things out." According to Pompeo, US diplomats were successful in convincing Pakistan and India that neither country was planning a nuclear No other country could have prevented such an incident." The actions we took that evening had dire consequences, Pompeo wrote.
In a reference to the weakness of civilian governments, Pompeo, who claimed that Pakistan "probably enabled" the Kashmir attack, claimed that he had spoken to "Pakistan's de facto leader," the country's then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.
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At the time, Pompeo openly defended India's ability to act. Pompeo praised India in his book and, unlike officials in New Delhi, made no secret of his desire to forge an alliance with the South Asian democracy "to counter Chinese aggression".
In 1998, a pivotal year, both Pakistan and India tested nuclear weapons. The then US President Bill Clinton is credited with calling Kashmir, which is divided between the two countries, "the most dangerous place in the world."
In the book, Pompeo goes into great detail about his diplomatic efforts with Kim Jong Un, including organizing three meetings between the young authoritarian leader and Trump.
When he arrived in Pyongyang in March 2018 for a secret mission as CIA director, he recalled a terrifying first encounter. "I didn't anticipate you would arrive. Pompeo quoted Kim as saying, "I know you're trying to kill me.
I decided to laugh a little to myself and say, "Mr. Chairman, I'm still trying to kill you." However, Pompeo said the two were beginning to understand each other as the Trump administration provided incentives to reduce tensions.
In reference to Kim's smoking behavior, Pompeo wrote that he had promised to take her to "the best Cubanos beach in the world in Miami". I already have a great relationship with Castro, he claimed to me. Naturally, he did.
Regarding the content of their conversation, Pompeo claimed that Kim openly expressed concern about China, which is generally considered North Korea's main ally. When Kim was told that China thought North Korea wanted US forces to leave South Korea, Kim "climbed the table laughing and in sheer joy, saying the Chinese were liars".
In reference to the Chinese Communist Party, Pompeo wrote that Kim "said he needed Americans in South Korea to protect him from the CCP, and the CCP needed Americans to help him treat Tibet and the peninsula like Xinjiang."
As a result of his controversial claim that Beijing was spreading the "Wuhan virus", a derogatory term for COVID-19, Pompeo gained notoriety for his aggressive stance on China.
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He claimed that Trump angrily told him that China's leader, Xi Jinping, "hated you," and that he told Pompeo to "shut the hell up for a while" because of Chinese medical supplies to the United States. was needed. Pompeo expressed displeasure over the president's tweets about how well the CCP is handling the virus and how he praised Xi.
“But I recognized the situation – we needed medical supplies and we depended on the CCP for them. I would wait since I worked for the president.
Even though early polls indicate little support for Pompeo, he has not ruled out taking on Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.