The surprises of former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, contained in his new book Never Give An Inch, are still being bombarded in international circles.
In her news, the former US official revealed that India and Pakistan came close to a nuclear war in February 2019, explaining that the US intervention is only to prevent escalation.
A scary call banished a horrific outcome
Pompeo added that, according to him, the world does not know correctly how close the Indo-Pakistani dispute was to turning into a nuclear confrontation in February 2019.
The former minister, who was in Hanoi to attend a summit between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, also continued that he then woke up to an urgent call from a senior Indian official.
He pointed out that the Indian official believed that the Pakistanis had begun preparing their nuclear weapons to carry out a strike.
“He informed me that India is considering escalating it,” he said.
He also pointed out that he had asked the Indian official not to do anything but give them time to discuss matters, revealing that US diplomats had convinced India and Pakistan that neither of them was ready to use nuclear weapons, according to what came.
And he considered that no other country might have done what the United States did that night to avoid a horrific outcome.
3 nuclear wars
It is noteworthy that the incident that Pompeo is talking regarding occurred when India launched air strikes inside Pakistani territory following blaming an armed group there for carrying out a suicide bombing that killed 41 Indian soldiers in the Kashmir region.
From the border between India and Pakistan (archive)
In turn, Pakistan shot down an Indian plane and captured the pilot.
India has long accused Pakistan of supporting separatist militants in the Kashmir Valley, an accusation Islamabad denies.
While the two nuclear-armed neighbors have fought 3 wars since independence from Britain and partition in 1947. All but one of those wars were over Kashmir.