Pakistan’s foreign minister has accused eastern neighbour India of adopting “belligerent and aggressive policies” to raise the chances of conflict in the Indian Ocean, the Pakistani state news agency reported.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi also discussed concerns about India’s acquisition of advanced naval weapons technology from Western partners and through domestic development in his comments to the Ninth International Maritime Conference in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Monday.
“India’s belligerent and aggressive policies – currently driven by an extremist Hindutva ideology – pose an immediate and pervasive threat to international and regional peace and security,” he said, as quoted by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news service.
“Pakistan will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure its security and to maintain credible minimum deterrence,” he said.
Regional balance of power
India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars and several minor conflicts since they gained independence from the British in 1947.
In 2016, India changed the balance of naval power in the region by announcing that it had formally commissioned the INS Arihant, a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.
The Arihant was the first ballistic missile submarine to be built domestically by a country other than the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
India also operates a second nuclear submarine, the INS Chakra II, which is a Russian Akula-class submarine acquired on a 10-year lease in 2012. A third nuclear submarine, the INS Arighat, is currently under construction.
Analysts say that while the Indian armament build-up may pose a threat to Pakistan, it should also be seen as part of the country taking an increasing role in regional security as part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue group, which includes the United States, India, Japan and Australia and is aimed at countering China’s increasing military power in the Indo-Pacific region.
“There has been a build-up, and it seems to be mostly against China, but certainly it has cre
