Islamabad. 25 years after the Kargil war, Pakistan has admitted that its soldiers were involved and were killed in it. This is the first such confession from the Pakistan Army headquarters in Rawalpindi. Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Syed Asim Munir has accepted the direct role of the Pakistani army in the 1999 Kargil war against India.
Munir, in his Defence Day speech on Friday, referred to the three wars with India as well as Kargil. He paid tribute to the ‘martyred’ soldiers of the Pakistan armed forces. “Surely the Pakistani nation is a powerful and brave nation which understands the value of independence and knows how to maintain it,” he told military officials and others at the Army Headquarters. He said whether it was 1948, 1965, 1971, the Kargil war between Pakistan and India or the war in Siachen, thousands of people sacrificed their lives and were martyred for the security of the country.
Munir’s statement is being considered as the first-of-its-kind confession by a sitting army chief on the direct role of Pakistan army in the Kargil war. Till now Pakistan had been denying its involvement in the 1999 war and claiming that it was an independent action by ‘freedom fighters’ of Kashmir. Former army chief General Pervez Musharraf always claimed that the Kargil operation was a successful local action.
In an interview, General Musharraf had said that the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was not taken into confidence and many decisions taken by the armed forces on the Line of Control with India did not require the approval of the army chief. However, Musharraf acknowledged the role of the Pakistan Army’s 10 Corps FCNA in the entire operation.