WASHINGTON: The downing of two Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jets by PAFhas proved to be the turning point in entire episode of Pakistan Indiaescalation.
The shooting down persuaded the United States to re-engage Pakistan forending a dangerous confrontation between South Asia’s two nuclear-armedstates, said a former White House official.
“After the Pakistani military shot down two Indian Air Force planes andcaptured an Indian pilot, the United States walked back its rhetoric ofself-defence,” said Shamila N. Chaudhary, who was director for Afghanistanand Pakistan at the White House National Security Council under PresidentBarack Obama.
She was referring to a recent statement by US National Security AdviserJohn Bolton who said after the Feb 14 suicide attack in Pulwama that theUnited States “support(s) India’s right to self-defence”.
In a piece she wrote for a congressional newspaper, *The Hill*, she notedthat after Pakistan brought down the IAF planes US Secretary of State MikePompeo urged both countries “to exercise restraint, and avoid escalation atany cost”.
Later, several US lawmakers backed Mr Pompeo’s appeal to India and Pakistanto defuse the situation.
“Pakistan’s repatriation of Wing Commander Abhinandan to India is a goodfirst step toward enabling meaningful dialogue to resolve this conflict,”said Congressman Eliot L. Engel, chairman of the House Committee on ForeignAffairs.
Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, called upon the Trump administration to play an active role to“promote peace and stability in South Asia” following the flare-up intensions between India and Pakistan.
He reminded the present administration that “past Republican and Democraticadministrations have played constructive roles at the highest levels topromote peace and stability in South Asia”.
Congressman Engel endorsed the kind of miscalculation Prime Minister ImranKhan “rightly fears.
Underlining the threat of further escalation, Senator Menendez said: “Iurge Islamabad and New Delhi to immediately engage in dialogue tode-escalate the tensions.”
On Thursday, Secretary Pompeo told journalists that he “spent a good dealof time” talking to Pakistani and Indian leaders, “encouraging eachcountry to not take any action that would escalate and create increasedrisk”.