Pakistan has asserted that it will open its Eastern airspace for flights to and from New Delhi only if India promises not to repeat a Balakot like operation inside Pakistan’s territory, reported Times of India. Interestingly, while Pakistan wants India to promise that a Balakot like operation won’t be repeated, when the operation, codenamed ‘Operation Bandar’ had happened, Pakistan had lied that India had managed to burn just a few trees.
Post the dastardly Pulwama attack on February 14th 2019, India had conducted a bold operation where Indian Airforce entered deep inside the Pakistan territory and bombed terror camps of Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Pakistan had shut its airspace on 26th February after India had conducted the airstrikes inside Pakistan territory. In fact, the standoff between India and Pakistan lasted many weeks where several people thought that the two countries were at the cusp of war.
Times of India quoted a CAA official who said, on the condition of anonymity that it was surprising that no back-channel talks had been initiated considers the closure of airspace was resulting in losses for Pakistan and India.
Interestingly, Pakistan has been constantly talking about ‘de-escalation’ after insisting that Balakot airstrikes did not do much damage inside Pakistan’s territory. In fact, after repeatedly asserting that not much damage had been caused, for months Pakistan had denied access to the International Media. Hilariously, Pakistan had termed Balakot as ‘Eco-Terrorism’ claiming that the strikes had done serious damage to the environment.
The Indian foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale had said that a very large number of JeM terrorists, commanders, senior leaders have perished in the air strikes carried out by the Indian Air Force. Even the Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa confirmed it in his press conference that his team had indeed hit the terror camps that were intended to be targeted.