RAWALPINDI: Pakistan and India are close to reducing the troop build up along their border to levels before conflict erupted between the nuclear-armed neighbours this month, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Sahir Shamshad said.
Both sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery in four days of clashes, their worst fighting in decades, before a ceasefire was announced.The spark for the latest fighting between the old enemies was an April 22 attack in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people, most of them tourists. New Delhi blamed the incident on “terrorists” backed by Pakistan, a charge categorically denied by Islamabad.
“We have almost come back to the pre-22nd April situation… we are approaching that, or we must have approached that by now,” said General Mirza.Mirza, who is in Singapore to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue forum, said while there was no move towards nuclear weapons during this conflict, it was a dangerous situation.“Nothing happened this time,” he said. “But you can’t rule out any strategic miscalculation at any time, because when the crisis is on, the responses are different.”
CJCSC Sahir Shamshad also said the risk of escalation in the future had increased since the fighting this time was not limited to the disputed territory of Kashmir.”This (conflict) lowers the threshold between two countries who are contiguous nuclear powers…in the future, it will not be restricted to the disputed territory. It would come down to (the) whole of India and (the) whole of Pakistan,” General Mirza said. “This is a very dangerous trend.”
The rapid escalation of hostilities ended in part because of behind-the-scenes diplomacy involving the U.S., India and Pakistan, and the key role played by Washington in brokering peace.“The time window for the international community to intervene would now be very less, and I would say that damage and destruction may take place even before that time window is exploited by the international community,” he said.
Pakistan was open to dialogue, CJCSC General Sahir Shamshad added, but beyond a crisis hotline between the directors general of military operations and some hotlines at the tactical level on the border, there was no other communication between Pakistan and India.Mirza said there were no backchannel discussions, or informal talks, to ease tensions. He also said he had no plans to meet General Anil Chauhan, India’s chief of defence staff, who is also in Singapore for the Shangri-La forum.
