Islamabad has ruled out the possibility of sending its High Commissioner back to India till the diplomatic stand-off continues with New Delhi.
Sohail Mahmood, the Pakistani High Commissioner to India, had been called back two days ago for consultations following accusations and counter accusations that diplomats of both countries and their families were being harassed and intimidated.
“Our high commissioner will not return to India anytime soon,” a senior foreign office official told Pakistani daily The Express Tribune just hours after Mahmood returned from New Delhi on Friday.
Both nations have accused each other of using spies to harass their respective diplomats and their families, including school-going children.
Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal had on 15 March said Islamabad will hold consultations with Mahmood over “recent incidents of harassing of their diplomats”.
Faisal alleged that diplomats of the Pakistani High Commission had been “harassed and intimidated” and that “vehicles transporting their children to schools had been stopped, the gas supply to the embassy had been cut and the staff had been threatened in recent weeks in New Delhi”.
Reacting to the development, Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “It is pretty normal for an Ambassador or a High Commissioner in any country – for example the resident Ambassadors and High Commissioners who are in India – to go back to their capital to hold consultations with the foreign office. This is pretty routine in nature.”
“We, of course, have no comments to offer as to why the Pakistani High Commissioner has gone back,” he added.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has reportedly decided to pull out of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meet, which is scheduled to take place on March 19-20, in New Delhi, India. According to the media reports, the decision has been taken in the wake of on-going diplomatic stand-off between both the neighbouring countries.
Read More: Pakistan pulls out of WTO meet to be held in Delhi
The last time envoys were recalled was in 2002 in the aftermath of the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament by Pak-sponsored terrorists. The attack led to the biggest ever massing of troops from both sides along the LoC and the International Border leading to a military standoff that lasted till June 2002.