NEW DELHI, Sept 16 (Reuters) – India’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it had summoned the top Pakistani diplomat to lodge a strong protest over what it said was “unacceptable and unprofessional conduct” of Pakistani naval units that led to a collision with an Indian warship.
This is the first instance of overt military tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours since they engaged in a fierce, four-day military conflict last year that raised fears of a wider war before a ceasefire was reached.
The collision on Tuesday occurred in international waters, where a Pakistani naval ship moved closer to a frontline Indian warship on a routine surveillance mission in the north Arabian Sea at high speed, causing a collision, Indian sources said.
The impact did not cause any major damage, but Pakistan’s conduct was “in direct contravention” of a 1991 agreement between the two countries governing military exercises, manoeuvres, and troop movements, the Indian foreign ministry said.
The agreement mandates that naval ships and submarines of the countries should keep a distance of at least three nautical miles from each other to avoid any accident in international waters.
The Pakistani government and military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The Charge d’Affaires of Pakistan was advised to convey to the concerned Pakistani authorities, the need for all military units to observe due care and respect the provisions of the relevant agreements between the two sides in order to prevent any repeat of such incidents,” the ministry said in a statement.
The top Indian diplomat in Islamabad was also instructed to lodge a similar protest with Pakistan’s foreign ministry, it said.
India and Pakistan do not have ambassadors in each other’s capitals as they downgraded their diplomatic relations over their Kashmir dispute in 2019, with their missions headed by a Charge d’Affaires since.
Arch rivals India and Pakistan have fought three major wars, two of them over Kashmir, and numerous armed skirmishes since independence from British colonial India in 1947.
(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh and Saurabh Sharma, Writing by Hritam Mukherjee and Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh)
