ISLAMABAD: Under the leadership of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is more likely “to respond with military force” to provocations from Pakistan, heightening the risk of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours, a United States intelligence report sent to Congress this week said.
Ties between India and Pakistan have been frozen since the suicide bombing of an Indian military convoy in Kashmir in 2019 that India said was carried out by “Pakistan-based militants” (Islamabad denies state complicity) and because of which New Delhi sent warplanes into Pakistan. Islamabad shot down an Indian fighter jet and captured its pilot in a subsequent aerial dogfight.
In August of the same year, India’s prime minister withdrew Indian Occupied Kashmir’s (IOK) autonomy in order to tighten his grip over the territory, provoking outrage in Pakistan and the downgrading of diplomatic ties and suspension of bilateral trade. Both India and Pakistan rule Kashmir in part but claim the Himalayan valley in full.
“Although a general war between India and Pakistan is unlikely, crises between the two are likely to become more intense, risking an escalatory cycle,” said the annual threat assessment report for 2021 prepared by the office of the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and sent to Congress.
“Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is more likely than in the past to respond with military force to perceived or real Pakistani provocations, and heightened tensions raise the risk of conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, with violent unrest in Kashmir or a militant attack in India being potential flashpoints.”
“The tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan remain a concern for the world,” the report said, referring to regional conflicts that continue to fuel humanitarian crises, undermine stability, and threaten US persons and interests.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars and had tense ties since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
But in a rare sign of rapprochement, they held the first meeting in three years of a commission on water rights from the Indus River in March.
In February, the two nations announced a rare agreement to stop firing on the bitterly-contested border in Kashmir.
This week, the United Arab Emirates envoy to Washington said that the UAE had played a role in getting long time rivals India and Pakistan to agree to a ceasefire amid tensions over disputed Kashmir.
Speaking in a video released Wednesday by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Yousef Al-Otaiba acknowledged an Emirati role “in bringing the Kashmir escalation down.”
“We try to be helpful where we have influence with two different countries,” Al-Otaiba told HR McMaster, a former national security adviser to Trump. “India and Pakistan was the most recent one.”
