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Posted on 01/22/2003 4:03:31 PM PST by blam
India expels diplomats as tension with Pakistan rises
By Phil Reeves in Delhi
23 January 2003
India threw out two senior Pakistani diplomats and two other officials yesterday, deepening the winter chill that now grips the relationship between the two hostile neighbours.
It added to tension, cranked up to an alarming level in the past few days by a fresh batch of Indian missile tests, more deaths in Kashmir and a major new military deal between Delhi and Moscow.
India announced yesterday that four officials from the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi had 48 hours to leave the country. Those expelled include the political counsellor – the mission's second most senior envoy – a first secretary and two other staffers.
According to India's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Navtej Sarna, the four had been "indulging in activities incompatible with their official status". That is generally considered to be a euphemism for spying.
There was an angry and indignant reaction from Pakistan, that seems likely to reciprocate by throwing some Indian diplomats out of Islamabad.
A Pakistani government spokesman described it as another "unpleasant development", insisting that an "appropriate action" would be taken in response.
Relations between India and Pakistan have hit a particularly rough patch, after easing slightly with the pull-back of troops from along their borders last summer, when the two countries appeared to be on the verge of war.
Yesterday's expulsions came amid a simmering row over claims that both sides have been harassing one another's envoys. India says one of its senior diplomats in Islamabad has been repeatedly harassed by Pakistani security agents over the past week. Pakistan's acting High Commissioner to Delhi has countered by saying that Indian intelligence agents have been tailing him too closely.
Strains – whipped up by bellicose rhetoric that the two sides frequently exchange – grew greater at the end of last week when it became clear that India and Russia are close to clinching a multi-billion dollar arms deal.
That would allow Delhi to receive a refitted aircraft carrier, four long-range strategic bombers and two nuclear-powered Akula-class submarines capable of carrying missiles with nuclear warheads.
Islamabad has complained that the Moscow-Delhi dealings are upsetting the balance of power or – as Pakistan put it in a brusque statement yesterday – "aggravate the existing imbalance of conventional forces and strategic weapon delivery systems in the region".
Such considerations did not deter India and Russia from deepening their long-lasting military ties by signing a protocol last week which includes the joint development of an advanced fighter jet, and extending their joint production of the supersonic Brahmos cruise missile.
Against this worsening backdrop, missiles have been winging through the skies on test runs, and militants – backed by Pakistan, according to India – have continued launching attacks in Kashmir.
On Monday, there was an angry outburst from Islamabad after India conducted its third test in 11 days, firing a surface-to-air Akash rocket from a mobile launcher in the eastern state of Orissa.
Pakistan recently accused India of being "obsessed with war". Two days earlier, India tested the same system. And on 9 January it test-fired the more powerful Agni-1 missile, drawing strong criticism from Washington and London.
Our public education system is a real POS. It is a glorified babysitting and socialist indoctrination camp financed by the taxpayer.
Your appeal to ad hominem attack doesn't improve your line of reasoning. I graduated with a BA in Molecular Biology from Revelle College, UCSD at age 19. My GRE scores were in the 99th percentile.
I took the GRE in 1976. I'll pass on baking in the sun, thanks. I saw the consequences of spending too much time on a sailboat at my 20th high school reunion. Those guys looked worse at 35 than my grandfather did at 80.My 30th high school reunion happens in July this year.
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