Pakistan would be prepared to return the Indian pilot shot down and captured this week if it helped ease the crisis with its neighbor, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told Pakistani television station Geo TV on Thursday.
“We are willing to return the captured Indian pilot if it leads to de-escalation,” he was quoted as saying in the capital Islamabad.
He spoke a day after the pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, was shot down in a rare aerial engagement between the South Asian neighbors over the disputed region of Kashmir.
The incident was the latest in a dangerous sequence of events between the two countries that have sent tensions rocketing, as major world powers including China, the U.S. and the U.N. urged restraint.
It sparked fears of India and Pakistan — who have fought two wars and countless deadly skirmishes over Kashmir — entering a cycle of retaliation and counterattacks that could spiral out of control.
Varthaman, who rapidly attained hero status in his own country, has become the face of the escalating conflict, with analysts touting him as a potential trump card for Islamabad and perhaps the key to bringing the arch-rivals back from the brink
BY SABAH DAILY NEWS
