Indian Ambassador in Russia rejects Russia’s mediators offer  

MOSCOW: India’s Ambassador to Russia D Bala Venkatesh Varma said on Saturday that India is not planning to conduct any fresh air strikes at the Line on Control or inside Pakistan.

“No, we have no [such] plans at the present moment”, the ambassador said, answering the relevant question during an interview with Russia-backed Sputnik news agency.

He said the situation is gradually returning to normalcy, adding that, India is not interested in an escalation of the situation.

Referring to Russia’s offer to mediate between Pakistan and India, the envoy asserted that India rejects the idea of engaging mediators to resolve the crisis with Pakistan.

“I need to clarify that there’s been no formal offer of mediation. And even if it is made, we will not accept it,” he stressed.

Amid rising tensions between Pakistan and India, Russian government officials on Thursday said that Moscow is ready to mediate between India and Pakistan to try to calm tensions between the two nuclear powers.

Moscow made the offer after Pakistan said it was considering returning a captured Indian pilot and as US President Donald Trump said American mediation was helping to defuse the crisis.

When asked on Thursday if Russia was ready to help mediate between the two countries, the TASS news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying: “If they want this, then of course.”

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova later said Moscow was ready to do anything it could to help.

“We are concerned about the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan and the dangerous maneuvering of the two countries’ armed forces near the line of control, which risks direct military clashes,” Zakharova told reporters.

In response on the same day, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Islamabad is ready to accept Moscow’s offer to act as a mediator between Pakistan and India.

“[Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov has offered to mediate. I don’t know about India, but I want to say this to Russia that Pakistan is ready to come to the table and de-escalate tensions,” a Pakistani English newspaper quoted him as saying.

Alarming the international community, tensions escalated after the February 14 suicide bombing in Pulwama district of Indian Occupied Kashmir, with the attack allegedly claimed by JeM.

Twelve days later Indian warplanes launched a failed strike inside Pakistan, making a false claim to have hit a militant camp. Islamabad denied casualties or damage, but a day later launched its own incursion across the LoC. That sparked the dogfight which ended in destruction MiG-21 jet of Indian Air Force, and Indian Air Force (IAF) Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s capture.

On Friday evening, Pakistan returned Abhinandan to India as a peace gesture.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said he was “treated with dignity and in line with international law”, and that his release was “aimed at de-escalating rising tensions with India”.

 

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