Pakistan army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir’s nuclear threat from US soil shows that India’s neighbour country is an “irresponsible” state that can’t be trusted with such weapons, government sources said on 11 August, Monday. Opposition voices also condemned the army chief’s statements.

In an address to the Pakistani diaspora in Florida’s Tampa, Munir reportedly made the nuclear threat in case his country faced an existential threat in a future war with India.

“We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we’ll take half the world down with us,” media reports quoted him as saying.

In his address, Munir said Pakistan had responded “resolutely and forcefully” during the recent conflict with India during Operation Sindoor and that Islamabad made it clear that any Indian aggression will be met with a “befitting reply”.

Munir is on an official visit to the US and has engaged in high-level interactions with senior political and military leadership, as well as members of the Pakistani diaspora, the Pakistani army said in a statement.

Randhir Jaiswal, official spokesperson for India’s ministry of external affairs, said India will “continue to take all steps necessary to safeguard our national security”.

“Our attention has been drawn to remarks reportedly made by the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff while on a visit to the United States. Nuclear sabre-rattling is Pakistan’s stock-in-trade. The international community can draw its own conclusions on the irresponsibility inherent in such remarks, which also reinforce the well-held doubts about the integrity of nuclear command and control in a state where the military is hand-in-glove with terrorist groups,” said Jaiswal.