India and Pakistan closer to conflict over Kashmir attack as tit-for-tat moves mount

Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan have moved closer to military confrontation as Islamabad closed its airspace to Indian aircraft and warned that any effort by Delhi to interfere with the supply of water under a decades-old treaty would be viewed as an act of war. In a series of escalating tit-for-tat moves since a massacre of Indian tourists in the disputed region of Kashmir earlier this week by Islamic militants, India ordered its citizens to return from Pakistan, while Pakistan expelled a number of Indian diplomats. The fast-rising tensions between the two countries follow the killing of 25 Indian tourists and a Nepalese national on Tuesday, the worst assault targeting civilians in the restive region for years. It prompted India to renew its blaming of Pakistan for sustaining “cross-border terrorism”, a claim Pakistan denies. “Pakistan declares the Indian defence, naval and air advisers in Islamabad persona non grata. They are directed to leave Pakistan immediately,” a statement from the office of the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said after he had convened a rare national security committee meeting. It also said visas issued to Indian nationals would be cancelled. “Any threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty and to the security of its people will be met with firm reciprocal measures in all domains,” the statement added, ordering the closure of borders, the cancellation of trade and the closure of airspace to Indian-owned or Indian-operated airlines. “India has taken irresponsible steps and levelled allegations,” Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, told the Dunya News TV channel. Dar said “any kinetic step [military action] by India would see a tit-to-tat kinetic response” from Pakistan, rekindling memories of February 2019 when a car suicide bombing in Kashmir brought the two countries to the verge of war. The toughest language, however, was aimed at India’s decision to suspend the decades-old Indus waters treaty – the world’s most durable water-sharing agreement – which is vital for Pakistani agriculture. “Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan as per the Indus waters treaty … will be considered as an act of war and responded [to] with full force across the complete spectrum of national power,” Islamabad said on Thursday. India suspended the treaty on Wednesday, when it also accused Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” and downgraded ties with its neighbour with a series of diplomatic measures. Pakistan has denied any role in the attack. In response, Pakistan suspended the Shimla accord, the 1972 treaty that for decades formed the foundation of peace with India that was signed by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, and Pakistan’s Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after the 1971 war that resulted in Bangladesh’s creation. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, vowed to pursue those responsible for Tuesday’s attack “to the ends of the Earth”. Twenty-six men were killed in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam, in the deadliest attack on civilians in the contested Muslim-majority territory since 2000. “I say to the whole world: India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backer,” Modi said in his first speech since the attack. Pakistan’s top diplomat in Delhi, Saad Ahmad Warraich, the charge d’affaires at the Pakistan embassy, was summoned by India’s ministry of external affairs on Wednesday evening, according to a diplomatic source and local media reports. India had already closed a key land border with Pakistan and barred Pakistani citizens from entering under a visa exemption scheme. Police in Kashmir published notices on Thursday naming three suspected militants alleged to have been involved in the attack, and announced rewards for information leading to their arrest. Two of the three are Pakistani nationals, according to the notices. Modi has called for a meeting with opposition parties on Thursday to brief them on the government’s response to the attack. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947, with both claiming the Himalayan territory in full but governing separate portions of it. The Indus waters treaty, mediated by the World Bank, splits the Indus River and its tributaries between the neighbours and regulates the sharing of water. It had until now withstood wars between the neighbours. India would hold the treaty in abeyance, the country’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, said. Diplomatic ties between the two countries had been loose even before the latest measures were announced, after Pakistan had expelled India’s envoy and said it would not post its own high commissioner to Delhi when India revoked the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir in 2019. Reuters, AP and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report