Pakistan to release IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman today

New Delhi/Islamabad: In a major diplomatic move billed as a “peace gesture” and designed to de-escalate mounting tensions with India, Pakistan Prime Minster Imran Khan on Thursday announced that Indian Air Force’s Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman will be released on Friday.

According to media reports, he is expected to reach India through the Wagah-Attari border near Amritsar in Punjab accompanied by India’s air attache to Pakistan, Group Captain J.D. Kurian.

Speaking in Parliament on rising tensions between Pakistan and India, Mr Khan said, “As a peace gesture, we are releasing the Indian pilot tomorrow (Friday).”

The announcement came just hours after Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Mr Khan was ready for telephonic talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and that Pakistan was ready to hand over Wg. Com. Abhinandan if it leads to de-escalation.

Interestingly, earlier in the day Indian government sources had made it clear that there would be no deal with Pakistan over the release of the IAF pilot. They indicated that India cannot let the mood of the nation depend on an individual and that the focus would remain on India’s concerns on terrorism.

Pakistan’s move is being seen as an effort to wrest the diplomatic initiative, deny India any ground for military action, generate goodwill among the Indian public and convey to the world that Pakistan believes in peace.

The move came even as Western powers like the US, UK and France and powerful Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and UAE lobbied with both countries in an effort to lower temperatures.

Evidence of that global pressure was clear when US President Donald Trump, in response to questions in Hanoi, said early on Thursday, “I think (we will soon have) reasonably attractive news from Pakistan and India. They have been going at it and we have been involved and have them stop, we have some reasonably decent news. Hopefully it’s going to be coming to an end  this has been going on for a long time, decades and decades.”

The release of the IAF pilot is expected to somewhat pacify the Indian government, with both the IAF and government sources saying New Delhi was “happy” over Mr Khan’s announcement, but also insisting that Pakistan has to act against terrorists operating from its soil.

Mr Modi on Thursday appeared to be making a reference to India’s air strikes on terror camps in Pakistan when he said that a “pilot project” was recently carried out  and now the “real one” has to be done. Speaking at an award ceremony for scientists, he said, “You spend your life in laboratories. You have a tradition of first doing a pilot project. It is later scaled up. So recently a pilot project happened. Now the real one has to be done. Earlier one was a practice.”

Government sources revealed on Thursday morning that on Wednesday night, Pakistan had made false allegations to foreign embassies in Islamabad by claiming that India was planning missile strikes, that Indian troops were massing on the border and that the Indian Navy was preparing to strike Karachi.

 India strongly objected to “Pakistan’s vulgar display of an injured personnel of the Indian Air Force in violation of all norms of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Geneva Convention”. New Delhi also told Islamabad “to ensure that no harm comes to the Indian defence personnel in its custody”, adding that “India also expects his immediate and safe return”.

In Islamabad, officials reviewed legal aspects, bilateral and international agreements, including whether Geneva Conventions would apply, before taking the decision to release Wg. Com. Abhinandan. If he were granted Prisoner of War (PoW) status, then Geneva Convention would have applied to him.