London, November 17, 2019 (PPI-OT): Britain’s former ambassador to the UN while warning of a real risk of an all-out military war between Pakistan and India over Jammu and Kashmir has urged the international community to help resolve the dispute or else pay a big price in the future in terms of a nuclear war.
Former UK ambassador Sir Mark Lyall Grant in an article said a nuclear war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could cost the UK up to £20 billion. He said the conflict would have security implications for the UK, adding that Britain had a particular responsibility in helping resolve the crisis. “Tensions are near boiling point with the increasingly bitter feud between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region putting the security of the whole subcontinent at risk,” he added.
Writing in Forbes, the US magazine, Sir Mark Lyall Grant warned of the risk of the conflicting escalating into a military conflict, which could cost the UK up to £20 billion. “India’s latest action is bound to increase the levels of disaffection and extremism in the majority Muslim population of Kashmir.”
“That in turn risks increased radicalisation of Kashmiri populations in the West. In the UK, around 60 percent of the 1.5 million British nationals of Pakistan origin come from the Mirpur area of Pakistan controlled Kashmir, and so are deeply affected by what happens in Kashmir.”
He concluded: “So, there could be national security implications for the UK.” The former national security advisor to David Cameron and Theresa May urged the international community to help resolve the crisis or else pay a big price in the future. He said the UK, in particular, was responsible, because Britain failed to tackle the well-known differences over Kashmir.
“The U.K. has a particular responsibility – when British partitioned India in 1947, in their haste to leave the subcontinent, they failed to tackle the well-known differences over Kashmir, thus creating an explosive bone of contention between India and Pakistan that has plagued the region ever since.”
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