'We have been doing this dirty work...': Pak defence minister Khawaja Asif's big admission

Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif on Friday made a big admission that Pakistan has been doing the "dirty work" for the US and the West including the UK for around 3 decades. 

"We have been doing this dirty work for United States for about three decades you know and the West including Britain," Asif told Sky News in an interview. He was responding to a question on if Pakistan has a long history of supporting, training and funding terrorist organisations.

With this admission, Asif seems to have confirmed India's allegations that Pakistan has its "fingerprints" on terrorist incidents worldwide, which it has made at various global forums including the UN General Assembly.

The Pakistani minister also claimed in the interview that Pakistan's track record would have been unblemished had it not participated in the war against the Soviet Union and the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks.

Asif also said that no other country in the world has suffered as much due to terrorism as Pakistan because of the wars in Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s. He even accused India of following a pattern of blaming Pakistan for incidents on its soil, citing the attack on Sikhs when former US President Bill Clinton visited India.

India had asserted that the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was behind the massacre. "We are very familiar with the pain it inflicts on the people and the country and the nation when we are subjected to terrorism but this sort of a pattern which is going on India." 

He even warned that the Pakistani Army was "prepared for any eventuality" amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan. During the interview, he also said that the world should be "worried" about the likelihood of a full-scale war involving India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear weapons.

He, however, said that he hoped that the dispute could be resolved through negotiations between the two countries. Asif also bizarrely claimed that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) did not exist anymore and denied having any knowledge about its offshoot The Resistance Front (TRF).

TRF has claimed the responsibility for the Pahalgam attack. "Lashkar is an old name. It does not exist," Asif said. His statement comes in the aftermath of the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam that claimed the lives of 26 people, mostly tourists. 

India has retaliated by taking stern diplomatic measures against Pakistan including the suspension of Indus Waters Treaty, expulsion of Pakistani military attaches, and the immediate shutting down of the Attari land transit post. 

India has also revoked all the visas issued to Pakistani nationals from April 27 and advised Indian nationals in Pakistan to return home aat the earliest. In response, Pakistan has cancelled visas for Indians and put the Shimla agreement on hold.