India and Pakistan were on the brink of a nuclear war : Mike Pompeo

Washington DC (USA) – After the air strikes at Balakot, India and Pakistan were on the verge of nuclear war, claimed the then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his book ‘Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love’. India carried out a surgical strike on a terrorist training centre in Pakistan after the Pulwama attack in February 2019. India has not responded to Pompeo’s claim.

Pompeo further claimed that he was woken up by the then Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to tell him that after India’s action, Pakistan was preparing its nuclear weapons and India was also contemplating using its nuclear weapons in case Pakistan attacks. The US diplomats in Delhi and Islamabad did a good job and stopped the situation from escalating.

Got along very well with the then Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar

“On the Indian side, my original counterpart was not an important player on the Indian foreign policy team. Instead, I worked much more closely with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, a close and trusted confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Pompeo wrote in his book. Referring to S Jayshankar he writes, “We hit it off immediately. In our first meeting, I was bemoaning, in a very diplomatic speech, that his predecessor had not been particularly helpful,”.

American neglect of India was a decades-long bipartisan failure

Pompeo writes in his book, “American neglect of India was a decades-long bipartisan failure.” “We are natural allies, as we share a history of democracy, a common language, and ties of people and technology. India is also a market with enormous demand for American intellectual property and products. These factors, plus its strategic location in South Asia, made India the fulcrum of my diplomacy to counteract Chinese aggression.” He states in his book.