India, Pakistan Impose Tit-for-Tat-Sanctions

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 28, 2001

India, Pakistan Impose Tit-for-Tat-Sanctions

India banned Pakistan's national airline from entering Indian airspace and ordered half of Pakistan's embassy staff out of the country on Thursday, accusing its neighbor of sponsoring terrorists. Within hours, Pakistan announced identical steps against New Delhi. Pakistan International Airlines will be banned from Indian skies as of Jan. 1, the same day that an already announced halt to train and bus service between the two nuclear-armed rivals goes into effect.

Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told a news conference that the staff of both embassies would be cut in half within 48 hours, and any Pakistan high commission employees remaining in New Delhi would be restricted to the city limits of the capital. Across the border in Islamabad, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said on state television that the government would also ban Indian flights from Pakistani air space, order the expulsion of half the embassy staffers and restrict the movement of the rest to Islamabad.

India has already withdrawn its ambassador from Pakistan in a series of political and economic sanctions aimed at pressuring Pakistan to shut down two Islamic militant groups that New Delhi blames for a Dec. 13 suicide attack on the Indian Parliament.

A senior official of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity in Islamabad, responded that India's latest step was regrettable and would further aggravate the situation. ``Pakistan has been exercising maximum restraint and utilizing diplomatic channels,'' Aziz Ahmed Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, said just before Singh's announcement.

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