Indian and Pakistani soldiers briefly exchanged fire along their highly militarized frontier in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, Indian officials said yesterday, while the UN has urged the two sides to show “maximum restraint,” as tensions soared between the nuclear-armed rivals following a deadly attack on tourists.
India has described the massacre in which gunmen killed 26 people, most of them Indian, as a “terror attack” and accused Pakistan of backing it. Pakistan denied any connection to the attack near the resort town of Pahalgam in India-controlled Kashmir. It was claimed by a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance.
With the region on edge, three Indian army officials said that Pakistani soldiers fired at an Indian position in Kashmir late on Thursday. The officials on condition of anonymity said Indian soldiers retaliated and no casualties were reported.
Photo: REUTERS
Tuesday’s attack in Kashmir was the worst assault in years targeting civilians in the restive region. Since then, tensions have risen dangerously between India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, which is split between them and claimed by both in its entirety.
“We very much appeal to both the governments ... to exercise maximum restraint, and to ensure that the situation and the developments we’ve seen do not deteriorate any further,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York on Thursday.
“Any issues between Pakistan and India, we believe, can be and should be resolved peacefully through meaningful mutual engagement,” he added.
India on Wednesday, suspended a crucial water-sharing treaty that has withstood two wars between the countries and closed their only functional land border crossing. A day later, India revoked all visas issued to Pakistanis with effect from tomorrow.
Pakistan responded angrily that it has nothing to do with the attack, and canceled visas issued to Indians, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or Indian-operated airlines and suspended all trade with India. Nationals from both sides began heading back to their home countries through the Wagah border near Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore yesterday.
Additional reporting by AFP
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS