Pakistan summons its top nuclear body after launching offensive on India

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said it called a meeting on Saturday of the top body that oversees its nuclear arsenal after it launched a military operation against India early in the morning, targeting multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India.

However, Pakistan’s defence minister said later that no meeting of the top military and civil body overseeing the country’s nuclear arsenal had been scheduled following a military operation against India earlier in the day.

The Indian army said after the attacks that Pakistan was continuing its “blatant escalation” with drone strikes and using other munitions along India’s western border, and that its “enemy designs” would be thwarted.

Five civilians were killed in the attacks in the Jammu region of Indian Kashmir, regional police said.

Diplomatic calls for de-escalation, including by the United States, intensified as the nuclear-armed neighbours ramped up their worst fighting in three decades.

Pakistan said that, before its offensive, India had fired missiles at three air bases, including one close to the capital, Islamabad, but Pakistani air defences intercepted most of them.

Pakistan’s military also said the prime minister had called a meeting of the National Command Authority, a top body of civilian and military officials that oversees decisions on its nuclear arsenal.

Analysts and diplomats have long feared that conflict between the arch-rivals could escalate into the use of nuclear weapons, in one of the world’s most dangerous and most populated nuclear flashpoint regions.

Pakistan’s planning minister Ahsan Iqbal said the escalation was a test for the international community.

“We would hate to see that (nuclear) threshold being breached,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir on Friday morning, according to the U.S. State Department.

“He continued to urge both parties to find ways to de-escalate and offered U.S. assistance in starting constructive talks in order to avoid future conflicts,” said State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce.Locked in a longstanding dispute over Kashmir, the two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called “terrorist infrastructure”. Pakistan vowed to retaliate.

The meeting of the National Command Authority signalled an alarming escalation, analysts said.

“It is a soft nuclear signal but also well in line with Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine of first use and realistically reflective of where we are on the escalation ladder – which is pretty high up, after multiple duels between both sides, and also lacking in precedent,” said Asfandyar Mir, Senior Fellow for South Asia at the Stimson Center.–Reuters