NEW DELHI ( WNAM MONITORING): Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim refused to be drawn into India’s long-running attempt to brand Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism, telling an Indian television anchor bluntly that his own government’s intelligence had turned up no evidence to support the claim.
The exchange, part of an exclusive interview with an Indian anchor, put Anwar in exactly the position Indian media interviews are often designed to create: having just condemned one country’s conduct, would he now apply the identical standard to what India alleges are Pakistan’s actions in Kashmir, allegations Islamabad itself has never accepted? Asked whether he considered Israel’s actions against Hamas to be terrorism, he answered immediately: “Yes. It’s terrorism.” The anchor pressed the obvious follow-up. “By that same standard, would you describe Pakistan’s actions in Kashmir and against India as state terrorism?” Anwar did not take the bait, and in doing so declined to endorse the premise of the question as much as the label it was fishing for. “No, I wouldn’t say that. I know this is sensitive to say in India, but none of my intelligence could find any evidence to establish that it was state-sponsored terrorism.”
Pushed again on why he would not simply condemn Pakistan outright, Anwar held his line. “Because these things need proof, not assumptions,” he said. “Calling it state-sponsored needs clear evidence. We’d rather engage with Pakistan and resolve these issues.”
Anwar’s answer is notable precisely because it did not simply dispute a label, it declined to confirm the underlying accusation at all. Pakistan has consistently denied any state role in violence India attributes to it in Kashmir, and Anwar’s response, that his own intelligence found nothing to establish state sponsorship, lands closer to that denial than to India’s version of events. It also arrives at a moment when the “no evidence” finding has become an increasingly familiar rebuttal to Indian allegations against Pakistan more broadly. Five United Nations special rapporteurs concluded in a report made public last December that India had not produced what they called credible evidence of Pakistani involvement in the Pahalgam attack before striking Pakistani territory and suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, actions the experts said may themselves have violated international law. A foreign head of government now saying much the same thing, unprompted, on Indian television, only adds to that pattern.
The interview covered broader India-Malaysia ties and Anwar’s personal rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and came during Anwar’s visit to New Delhi for the BRICS summit, where he was separately seen singing a Kishore Kumar classic at a gala dinner. It is also consistent with Anwar’s wider record of declining to hand out the “terrorist” label on demand, he has similarly refused, on multiple occasions.
