Pakistan could lose conventional war with India: Imran Khan

New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said there was no question of talking to New Delhi after India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, while warning about the possibility of a conventional war with India that could go beyond the subcontinent.

"So that's why we have approached the United Nations, we are approaching every international forum, that they must act right now," he said in an interview to the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV channel, according to a PTI report on Sunday.

Khan said he "absolutely" believed war with India could be a possibility, the report said.

"...this is a potential disaster that would go way beyond the Indian subcontinent," Khan said.

He said that Pakistan would never start a war.

"I am a pacifist, I am anti-war, I believe that wars do not solve any problems," he told Al Jazeera.

"When two nuclear-armed countries fight, if they fight a conventional war, there is every possibility that it is going to end up into nuclear war. The unthinkable," he said. "If say Pakistan, God forbid, we are fighting a conventional war, we are losing, and if a country is stuck between the choice: either you surrender or you fight 'till death for your freedom, I know Pakistanis will fight to death for their freedom," he said.

The comment on possible war between the two countries is seen as an attempt to attract international attention to the Kashmir issue and getting the world community to offer to mediate in what India says is essentially a bilateral dispute.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have spiked since New Delhi abrogated provisions of Article 370 of its constitution to withdraw the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic relations with India and expelled the Indian high commissioner in protest. India on its part has said the revocation of the special status to Kashmir is an internal matter.

In his interview, Khan said Pakistan till recently had made attempts to open dialogue with India "to live as civilised neighbours, to resolve our difference [over Kashmir] ... through a political settlement".

He also accused India of trying to get Pakistan blacklisted in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

"If Pakistan is pushed into the blacklist of FATF that means there will be sanctions on Pakistan. So they were trying to bankrupt us economically, so that's when we pulled back. And that's when we realised that this government is on an agenda ... to push Pakistan to disaster," says Khan.

"There is no question of talking to the Indian government right now after they revoked this Article 370 of their own constitution and they annexed Kashmir illegally against the UN Security Council resolution," Khan said.