Pakistan’s top military General has stressed the need to move towards conflict resolution instead of management, warning that its absence could result in a destructive escalation, according to a media report on Sunday.
General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), made the remarks at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier defence forum, in Singapore on Saturday evening, the Dawn newspaper reported. During a panel discussion, titled “Regional Crisis-Management Mechanisms”, Mirza said: “It has become imperative to move beyond conflict management towards conflict resolution.
His remarks came in the backdrop of the recent military confrontation between India and Pakistan after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam.“Given the Indian policies... the absence of a crisis management mechanism may not give enough time to the global powers to intervene and affect cessation of hostilities. They will probably be too late to avoid damage and destruction,” he said. Mirza also highlighted the Kashmir issue and the recent military confrontation between Pakistan and India.
“When there is no crisis, Kashmir is never discussed, and as we always say that it is the Kashmir dispute resolution in line with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir and in line with the UNSC resolutions that will address many issues. “The core that resides between Pakistan and India is Kashmir,” he said. Mirza said unless countries did not “enter conflict resolution” — which he said could initially be through conflict management and then lead to resolution — issues would “always erupt”.
Other speakers on the panel included Canada’s Deputy Minister of National Defence Stefanie Beck and Fiji’s army chief Major Gen Jone Logavatu Kalouniwai.In an apparent reference to the Kashmir issue, Mirza said, “Crisis prevention is better than crisis fighting. Suppressed disputes, whether territorial or ideological, cannot be indefinitely managed.” The top general further said that following the military conflict, the “threshold of an escalatory war has come dangerously low, implying greater risk on both sides, not just in the disputed territory but all of India and all of Pakistan”.
He said Pakistan desired a “peaceful coexistence with India based on mutual respect, sovereign equality and most importantly, dignity and honour”.“We seek a principal order, an order anchored in sovereign equality and restraint. In this, crisis management is not merely a set of tools but a strategic ethic,” he added.
He noted that strategic stability hinged on conflict resolution, adding: “The lowering of this threshold to the dangerous levels, if next time such a conflict occurs and the cities are targeted first, […] there could be a chance — I’m not trying to create an alarm but I’m speaking based on logic — there could be a possibility that before the international community intervenes because of the restricted or constricted times window, the damage and destruction may have already taken place.”
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