New Delhi: Pakistan will carry out a nuclear attack against Israel if it drops a nuclear bomb on Iran, claimed a top Iranian officer of its elite forces as tensions in the Middle East continue to mount.
General Mohsen Rezae said this during an interview on Iranian television as Israel-Iran war escalated. So far, as many as 248 deaths have been reported — 230 in Iran and 18 in Israel.
“Pakistan has assured us that if Israel uses a nuclear bomb on Iran, they will attack Israel with a nuclear bomb,” said Rezaei, a top officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a member of Iran’s National Security Council.
As per International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Pakistan and Israel are among the nine countries that currently have nuclear weapons.
Pakistan has pledged that it would “stand behind Iran” and appealed to the Muslim world to unite, Rezae added, asserting that his country possesses hidden capabilities that have not yet been revealed to the world.
President Donald Trump of the US — which, along with Russia and China have one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals — has said that he is working to broker a deal between Israel and Iran.
On Sunday, Trump sounded a warning to Iran, saying that if it attacks the US, “the full strength and might of the US Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before”.
Pakistan has voiced concerns over Israel’s nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s defence minister Khwaja Asif said, “Western world must worry about conflicts being generated by Israel. It will engulf the whole region and beyond; their patronage of Israel, a rogue state, can have catastrophic consequences,” he pointed out.
