In a first, Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir has publicly acknowledged the role of the country’s military in the 1999 Kargil conflict with India.
Addressing an event at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi Friday to mark Pakistan’s 59th Defence Day, General Munir, referring to Pakistan’s wars with India, said, “Be it 1948, 1965, 1971, the Pak-India war in Kargil or the Siachen battlefront, thousands of Shuhada (martyrs) have sacrificed their lives for the nation and Islam.”
This is the first time that a serving Pakistan Army chief has admitted to the country’s military’s involvement in the 1999 Kargil conflict, references to which have been avoided in official communication in Pakistan.In 2010, over a decade after the Kargil conflict, Pakistan had put out the names of 350 Pakistani soldiers on the official website of the Pakistan Army in a section called Shuhada’s Corner. Most of them were from the Army’s Northern Light Infantry.
A year prior to that, in an article, former PAF Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail had given a detailed account of the preparations undertaken by Pakistan for the Kargil conflict.
On Friday, in a speech that lasted 12 minutes, Munir spoke about the sacrifices made by the Army and the people of Pakistan in the country’s war against terrorism. He also referred to the Kashmir issue as a global problem, stating that peace in South Asia can be established with its solution.
India marked 25 years of Kargil Vijay Diwas on July 26 this year. As many as 26 officers were killed and 66 injured, while soldier casualties were 523 killed and 1,363 injured in the warLast year, during the same event, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had said that even after winning the Kargil war on July 26, 1999, Indian forces did not cross the Line of Control because India is peace-loving, believes in Indian values and is committed to international laws.“At that time if we did not cross the LoC, it does not mean that we could not cross the LoC. We could cross the LoC, we can cross the LoC, and will cross the LoC in the future, if need be,” Singh said.