London: The UK feared an India-Pakistan nuclear war in the wake of the terror attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001 and tried to "persuade and cajole" the two countries to pull back from a military confrontation, according to evidence presented to an inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war made public on Wednesday.
In an attempt to highlight other pressing matters at the time, Straw said he had been preoccupied with the India-Pakistan issue on an "hour by hour" basis which formed the grounds for his close relationship with his US counterpart at the time Colin Powell.
In a memo to the inquiry committee dating back to January 2010 Straw said, "Immediately after 9/11 the foreign policy priority for the UK was Afghanistan. Towards the close of the year, following the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001,thepossibility verging it appeared attimeson the probability ofamilitary engagement between India and Pakistan became an added pre occupation for the UK government and the US.
The attack on Parliament in New Delhi by LeT and JeM militants killed 9 people.
"The joint US-UK endeavour to avoidsuch a serious regional conflict was the foundation of the veryclose working relationship which I developed with the US Secretary of State General Colin Powell," he said.
His testimony is backed up by his Foreign Office spokesperson and media advisor at the time, John Williams, who told the inquiry "The Foreign Secretary was chiefly preoccupied with trying to persuade India and Pakistan back from the edge of a war that might easily have gone nuclear".
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