Asia

Pakistani PM Says Country Ready to Cooperate With India on Kashmir Attack

The Pakistani military earlier announced that two Indian pilots have been captured. The downing of the Indian jets came a day after Indian warplanes struck a military training camp in Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir.
Sputnik

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that his country should "sit down and talk" to resolve the crisis with India which broke out on Wednesday after the Pakistani Air Force downed two Indian warplanes and captured two pilots.

"We didn't take action earlier without assessing our own damage from Indian airstrikes because we wanted a justified response. Two Indian MiGs that entered Pakistani airspace today after our retaliation were shot down," Khan said in a televised address on Wednesday.

"My question to the Indian government is: taking into account what kind of weapons you and we have, can we afford miscalculations? Where will this tension lead?" he asked.

"It will get out of control — mine or Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's. I once again invite you to sit down to the negotiating table. Let me reiterate that common sense should prevail. We must solve our problems through dialogue."

Earlier in the day, the Pakistani Army said it had downed two Indian jets that crossed the Line of Control over the disputed Kashmir Region and entered Pakistan's airspace.

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This contradicts the account of India's Foreign Ministry, which maintained that India lost one MiG-21 aircraft in the aerial incident and that a Pakistani jet was also shot down.

It comes a day after the Indian Air Force conducted an airstrike against a military training camp in Pakistan, killing "a very large number of people". The camp, according to New Delhi, belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad, the terror group responsible for a suicide car bomb attack on a paramilitary convoy in the Indian-controlled Kashmir on 14 February.

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The Indian Foreign Ministry said that the attack was carried out due to Islamabad's alleged "inability to act in order to destroy terrorist infrastructure," while the Pakistani Foreign Ministry slammed the airstrike as a violation of its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

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