Singapore (Reuters)-Pakistan and India are close to reducing troop accumulation along its border to the levels of the beginning of the conflict between the neighbors of nuclear weapons this month, a high Pakistani military official told Reuters on Friday, although the crisis increased the risk of a climb in the future.
Both sides used fighters, missiles, drones and artillery in four days of clashes, the worst in decades, before the announcement of a ceasefire.
The trigger for the last clashes between the old enemies was an attack on April 22 at Caxemira Indiana that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. New Delhi attributed the incident to “terrorists” supported by Pakistan, an accusation denied Islamabad.
On May 7, India launched missiles against what they said were places of “terrorist infrastructure” across the border and, as Pakistan responded with their own attacks, both countries increased their forces along the border.
General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, head of the Pakistan joint state, said in an interview that the two armed forces had begun the process of reducing troop levels.
“We are almost going back to the situation prior to April 22 … We are approaching this, or we must have already approached,” said Mirza, the highest Pakistani Military Authority to speak publicly since the conflict.
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The Ministry of Defense of India and the Indian Defense Team Chief Office did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comments on Mirza’s observations.
Mirza, who is in Singapore to participate in the Shangri-La Dialogue forum, said that although there was no movement towards nuclear weapons during this conflict, the situation is dangerous.
“Nothing happened this time,” he said. “But one cannot rule out any strategic calculation error at any time, because when the crisis begins, the answers are different.”
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He also said that the risk of climbing in the future has increased, as the fighting this time did not limit themselves to the disputed territory of Caxemira, the region in the Himalayan that both nations partially dominate, but claim completely. Both sides attacked military facilities in their main territories, but none of them recognized any serious damage.
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan this month that New Delhi would again attack “terrorist hiding places” across the border if there were new attacks on India.
The two countries have already crashed three great wars, two of them by Caxemira, and numerous armed skills since both were born of the British colonial India in 1947.
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India blames Pakistan for an insurgency in its part of Caxemira that began in 1989 and has killed tens of thousands of people. Pakistan states that it provides only moral, political and diplomatic support to cashmires seeking self -determination.
“This (conflict) reduces the limit between two countries that are contiguous nuclear powers … In the future, it will not be restricted to the territory in dispute. He will extend to all India and all Pakistan,” said Mirza. “This is a very dangerous trend.”
