Pahalgam attack: ‘Pakistan's past is no secret,’ says Bilawal Bhutto after defence minister’s ‘funding’ terror remark

Pahalgam Attack: Former Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto has acknowledged that the country has a past of supporting terror organisations.

Bhutto's remarks came after the country's Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, in an interview earlier, admitted that Pakistan as a country had been ‘funding’ terrorism for three decades.

“As far as what the defence minister (Asif) said, I don't think it is a secret that Pakistan has a past,” Bhutto said in a conversation with Sky News anchor Yalda Hakim on May 1.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which is part of Pakistan's ruling party.

Asif had shared his thoughts with the same anchor, Yalda Hakin of the British news channel Sky News, last week.

“As a result, we have suffered, Pakistan has suffered. We have gone through wave after wave of extremism. But as a result of what we suffered, we also learned our lessons. We have gone through internal reforms to address this problem,” Bhutto said in the interview.

The 35-year-old Bilawal is the son of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated on December 27, 2007, by a 15-year-old suicide bomber in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Bilawal's remarks came amid escalating tensions and Pakistan's downgraded diplomatic relations with India after the worst-ever terror attack on civilians in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam that killed 26 people, mostly tourists, earlier this week.

‘Did dirty work for US for 3 decades’

Asif admitted in a recent interview that Pakistan as a country has been ‘supporting, backing and funding’ terrorism for three decades. Asif went on to say that it was a mistake that the country was suffering from.

“Well, we have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades, and West, including Britain,” Asif is heard telling British news channel Sky News after anchor Yalda Hakim asked him about Pakistan's long history of backing, funding and supporting terrorist organisations.

On Pakistan's support for terrorism, Bilawal told Hakim that it was “an unfortunate part of our history.”

Bhutto, who addressed a rally in Mirpur Khas on Thursday, once again engaged in empty rhetoric, claiming that Pakistan wanted peace but was ready for war if India provoked them.

What happened in Pahalgam?

The Pahalgam terrorist attack was carried out in the fabled Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam on April 22, a day when United States Vice President JD Vance was in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on a state visit to Saudi Arabia.

India, blaming Pakistan, responded by deciding to shut the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari in Amritsar along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab immediately. India also decided to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.

The decisions to downgrade diplomatic ties with Pakistan in view of cross-border links to the Pahalgam terrorist attack were taken in the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 23.