India on Wednesday summoned Pakistan’s top diplomat to lodge a strong protest over a collision between Pakistani naval units and an Indian naval vessel in international waters, officials at the Indian foreign ministry said.
New Delhi accused Pakistan’s naval units of “unacceptable and unprofessional conduct” after a Pakistani ship neared an Indian warship at a high speed, causing a major collision in the international waters.
The collision was reported on Tuesday in the Arabian Sea where a Pakistani naval ship moved closer at high speed to a frontline Indian warship deployed on a routine surveillance mission, Indian sources told Reuters.
The Indian external affairs ministry said no major damage was reported in the incident.
It marks the first time India and Pakistan face overt military tension since the two nuclear-armed sides engaged in a near-war military conflict last year, sparking fears of regional tension and wider war before they reached a ceasefire agreement.
Indian officials in Delhi summoned Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires, Saad Warraich, to ensure the neighbour ensures its military units exercise caution and follow bilateral agreements to prevent similar incidents.
"While the incident, which took place in international waters, did not cause any major damage, the conduct of the Pakistani naval ship was in direct contravention of Article 10 of the Agreement between India and Pakistan on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troops Movements of April 1991,” the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Under the agreement, 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.
New Delhi has also asked its top diplomat in Islamabad to raise the issue with Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
Officials in Islamabad have not issued a comment on the incident immediately.
Regional rivals, India and Pakistan, have not deputed 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.
The two nations, on the brink of an all-out war last year, also cut the number of diplomatic staff, closed the only functional land border crossing between the countries and suspended a crucial water-sharing agreement.
A number of Pakistani diplomats were asked to leave New Delhi and Indian diplomats were recalled from Pakistan as diplomatic missions in both countries reduced their staff from 55 to 20 in May last year.
This came after India and Pakistan closed their airspaces to each other amid major aerial escalation after Indian forces struck parts of Pakistan, claiming that they attacked the terrorist sites linked to an attack on Indian civilians in Kashmir in April last year.
India and Pakistan’s ties worsened to their worst in decades after suspected militants killed 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, in Kashmir’s Pahalgam. India blamed Pakistan, which denied involvement.
