Pakistan and India are close to reducing the troop build up along their border to levels before conflict erupted between the nuclear-armed neighbours this month, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, a top Pakistani military official told Reuters on Friday, although he warned the crisis had increased the risk of escalation in the future.
Both sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery in four days of clashes, their worst fighting in decades, before a ceasefire was announced.
General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Pakistan’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said in an interview that the two militaries had started the process of drawing down troop levels.
“We have almost come back to the pre-22nd April situation… we are approaching that, or we must have approached that by now,” said Mirza, the most senior Pakistani military official to speak publicly since the conflict.
Mirza, who is in Singapore to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue forum, said while there was no move towards nuclear weapons during this conflict, it was a dangerous situation.
“Nothing happened this time,” he said. “But you can’t rule out any strategic miscalculation at any time, because when the crisis is on, the responses are different.”
He also said the risk of escalation in the future had increased since the fighting this time was not limited to the disputed territory of Kashmir, the scenic region in the Himalayas that both nations rule in part but claim in full. The two sides attacked military installations in their mainlands but neither has acknowledged any serious damage.
