Pakistan and India are close to reducing the troop build up along their border to levels before conflict erupted between the nuclear-armed neighbours earlier this month, according to top officials from both militaries interviewed by Reuters during the Shangri-La Dialogue forum.
Both sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery in four days of clashes, their worst fighting in decades, before they reached a ceasefire deal brokered by the US.
The latest fighting was sparked by an April 22 attack in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people where India blamed the incident on "terrorists" backed by Pakistan who denied such claims.
00:11None of the airfield was damaged and some secluded locality…
00:15Time window for the international community to intervene…
00:20Yes.
00:21What I can say is on 7th and the initial stages, there were losses but the numbers and that's not important.
00:35What was important is why did these losses occur and what we do after that.
00:40So, we rectified the tactics and then went back on 7th, 8th and 10th and 10th in large numbers
00:48to hit air bases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defenses with impunity,
00:56carried out precision strikes.
00:58So, Air Force went into a short mode as to why did this happen.
01:01They rectified their tactics and flew in again and flew all types of aircraft with all types of ordinances on 10th.
01:09I think Government of India has made it quite clear.
01:13They have laid down the limits of the tolerance against terror activities emanating from Pakistan.
01:19And it's quite clear that India is going to respond precisely and decisively,
01:26should there be any further terror attacks emanating from Pakistan.
01:30So, that I think has its own dynamics as far as the armed forces are concerned.
01:35It will require us to be prepared 24-7.
01:38This is the first time it has been held in abeyance and the decision to hold it in abeyance came in the first 24 hours.
01:47Without a shred of evidence, despite our offers of impartial and independent investigations.
01:55This is an existential threat to Pakistan.
01:57Raju, this was I would say an escalation, an escalatory war which has downgraded or which has
02:07which has lowered the threshold.
02:10And when I say it has lowered the threshold, previously you know we used to be confined to the disputed territory.
02:18This time it has been in the international border.
02:21And now in the future even, it will not be restricted to the disputed territory.
02:26It would come down to whole of India and whole of Pakistan.
02:29Rather, the cities were targeted first and the international border and the line of control were targeted later.
02:34So, this is a very dangerous trend.
02:37And it will affect, I would say, the investments, the trading and even the potential of 1.5 billion people who are there.
02:48We are coming back to pre, we have almost come back to pre 22nd April situation.
02:53When we say that the presence of troops on the borders, it is almost, we are approaching that or we must have approached that by now.
03:02And India as well, both sides?
03:04Yes, both sides. It has to be.
03:05Both sides are in the process of reducing balance.
03:06Yes, both sides. Both sides.
03:08It is my personal view again, that the most rational people are people in uniform when conflict takes place.
03:18That is because they understand that conflict can swing either way.
03:24They understand the consequences of this kind of conflict.
03:27And in every step which happened during this operations in Lour, I found both sides displaying a lot of rationality in their thoughts as well as actions.
03:39So, why should we assume that in the nuclear domain, there will be irrationality on someone else's part?
03:45I think that they will be subjected to very, very rational kind of behavior.
03:57Let me say a little bit.
03:58Let me go.
03:59Let me do a couple of stories that we talked about.
04:04I am wondering if I just wanted to explain in these conversations with people in the future.
04:08I was surprised.
04:09Let me.
04:11What was the problem?
04:13I was here with the upper abdomen.
04:15I am wondering if I was charged with the upper abdomen.
04:20I still believe that I am a simple eye of the upper abdomen.
