ISLAMABAD, June 1: Pakistan reiterated its position on Saturday that it will not be the first to initiate a war against India but if one was thrust upon Pakistan it will respond with full might.

“Nobody should have any illusions or miscalculations about it,” said President Pervez Musharraf’s spokesman and DG ISPR Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi.

Talking to Dawn, he said Pakistan had made it amply clear to India and the world that “if our territory or airspace is violated we will defend and respond.”

The President’s spokesman stated this in response to a report in the daily Christian Science Monitor Thursday that India was planning a 10-day “limited assault in Kashmir if infiltration does not significantly drop.” According to a senior Indian military official quoted in the report, the limited military operation would be undertaken to capture territory and dismantle the militants’ infrastructure.

Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi categorically dismissed the report as deserving of contempt and termed it “an utterly ridiculous assertion.”