Pakistan’s military said on Sunday that it expected a fragile calm along the border with India to hold, as senior officers from both countries continue to talk on a direct line after the region was jolted by four days of missile attacks and airstrikes.
Top military officers from both sides “are in contact, a mechanism is in place,” Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the spokesman for Pakistan’s armed forces, told The New York Times. He spoke during an interview on Sunday afternoon at the military’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the garrison city next to the capital, Islamabad.
India began military strikes on Pakistan on May 7 in retaliation for a terrorist attack two weeks before that it linked to Pakistan, which denied any involvement.
The conflict escalated over the following days, with attacks targeting military bases in the two nuclear-armed countries, until the United States mediated a cease-fire on May 10.
India has reported the loss of five soldiers, and Pakistan the loss of 11, in addition to civilian deaths from shelling along the line that divides the disputed Kashmir region between the two countries.
The two adversaries have spent the week since the end of the military confrontation making the case that they emerged victorious.
General Chaudhry acknowledged that India struck the Nur Khan air base near Islamabad and several other sites with cruise missiles on May 10. Satellite images reviewed by The Times confirmed damage at Nur Khan and other Pakistani military sites. But Pakistani officials say that the strikes caused only minor damage to runway strips and that operational capacity remained intact.
Military officials in Pakistan say they targeted 26 military sites in India on the same day as the Indian strikes, but they have not provided satellite imagery to corroborate their assertions.
General Chaudhry claimed that Pakistan’s air force had shot down six Indian warplanes, including three French-made Rafale jets. India has not admitted to losing planes, though evidence indicates it did lose some aircraft. General Chaudhry accused New Delhi of withholding information about its losses.
“We have been very transparent — about the attacks on our bases, our loss of lives,” he said. “Has India done the same?”
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