Pakistan will return a captured pilot “as a peace gesture” to India, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said yesterday, amid efforts by the US to defuse a crisis between the two nuclear powers a day after both downed enemy jets.
The pilot, identified by Islamabad as Wing Commander Abhi Nandan, became the human face of the latest flare-up following the release of videos showing him being captured and later held in custody.
Khan said the pilot would be released today, even as his military reported that four Pakistani civilians had been killed by Indians firing across the disputed border in Kashmir.
Khan’s decision came after several other countries offered diplomatic assistance to de-escalate the confrontation between two countries that almost went to war in 2002 for the fourth time since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said his counterpart from Saudi Arabia was expected to visit Pakistan with a special message from Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who visited both Pakistan and India early last month.
Khan has already called for talks with India to prevent the risk of a “miscalculation” between their nuclear-armed militaries.
Earlier, US President Trump said he expected “reasonably decent news” regarding the conflict, adding that the US was trying to mediate. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also offered to facilitate talks between the two sides.
The US, China, EU and other world powers have urged restraint from the two nations as tensions escalate following tit-for-tat airstrikes in the wake of a suicide car bombing that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Indian-controlled Kashmir on February 14.
Both countries downed enemy jets on Wednesday, and each accused the other of breaching ceasefire agreements yesterday. Indian and Pakistani troops traded fire along the contested border in Kashmir on at least three occasions yesterday, with the firing instigated by Pakistan every time, according to New Delhi.
Pakistan’s military said four civilians had been killed and two wounded in what it called a “deliberate” attack by India during the past 48 hours.
Earlier yesterday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces a general election in a matter of months, told a rally of supporters that India would unite against its enemies.
As a precaution amid the increased military activity, Pakistan has shut its airspace, forcing commercial airlines to reroute. Thai Airways International announced yesterday that it had
cancelled flights to Pakistan and Europe, which left thousands of passengers stranded in Bangkok.
India is building more than 14000 bunkers for families in Jammu and Kashmir state living close to the border.
On Wednesday evening, India’s foreign ministry handed a dossier to Pakistan that, it claimed, detailed camps of the Pakistan-based militant group that carried out the February 14 attack.
The latest escalation marks a sudden deterioration in relations between the two countries. As recently as November, Khan spoke of “mending ties” with India.
Pakistan’s envoy to the US, Asad Majeed Khan, said Islamabad would like to see the Trump administration play a more active role in easing the crisis. At the same time, he said the lack of US condemnation of India’s strike on Pakistan was “construed and understood as an endorsement of the Indian position”. Reuters