ISLAMABAD: Russia and Pakistan will carry out their first joint military exercise this weekend, the Pakistani military said Friday, at a time of heightened tensions between Islamabad and nuclear-armed rival India.
The exercise is being seen as a demonstration of closer defense ties between the two countries after they signed a military cooperation pact in 2014.
It comes after intense drills by the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) earlier this week that officials said had been long-planned, including landing combat aircraft on the Islamabad to Lahore motorway.
“A contingent of Russian ground forces arrived Pak(istan) for 1st ever Pak- Russian joint exercise from Sept. 24 to Oct. 10, 2016,” military spokesman Lt. Gen. Asim Bajwa tweeted Friday, without giving further details.
Pakistani defense and security analyst Hasan Askari said the exercise “signifies Russian desire to expand their options in South Asia,” adding it was the “natural” result of closer Indian ties with the US.
Islamabad has also been negotiating with Moscow a deal to buy combat helicopters. “These helicopters were to be supplied this year but now they are likely to arrive in 2017,” Askari said.
On Thursday the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched Highmark Exercise, shutting down sections of the motorway leading out of the capital to land “several” combat aircraft for the first time in six years, a senior security source told AFP.
The drill came as India and Pakistan traded angry words over an attack on an Indian army base in disputed Kashmir that Delhi has blamed on Islamabad.
But Pakistani officials said Highmark is a routine exercise, with a senior security official telling AFP that preparations — including setting the dates it would take place — had begun around one year ago.
The drill is aimed an enhancing “operational preparedness,” the official said, and will continue for several weeks followed by months of evaluation.
Earlier in the week the Pakistani military briefly closed airspace above the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region neighboring Kashmir.
Foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakariya said in Islamabad Thursday the moves were regular and routine.
Eighteen soldiers were killed in last Sunday’s attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir, which was the worst of its kind to hit the divided Himalayan region in more than a decade, increasing hostility between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Russia, Pakistan to carry out first joint military exercise
Russia, Pakistan to carry out first joint military exercise
Lithuania to declare ‘emergency situation’ over Belarus balloons: PM
- “We are currently preparing the legal basis and documents,” Ruginiene told reporters
- “We do not rule out going further,” Ruginiene added. Declaring a state of emergency is a possible stronger step
VILNIUS: Lithuania’s Prime Minister announced on Friday that the country will declare a national “emergency situation” over the influx of smuggler’s balloons launched from Belarus.
“We are currently preparing the legal basis and documents,” Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene told reporters, calling the emergency declaration “the best course of action at this time.”
The ‘emergency situation’ enables the government and local authorities to dedicate extra resources to combatting the balloons.
“We do not rule out going further,” Ruginiene added. Declaring a state of emergency is a possible stronger step.
As a result of balloon incursions, Lithuania’s two largest airports, in Vilnius and Kaunas, have on several occasions been forced to halt operations.
Lithuanian officials claim that the balloons, which fly up to 10 kilometers (six miles) high, are deliberately being launched into the airport’s flight paths, and constitute an attack on its civil aviation.
Though the balloons, which contain cigarettes, have long been used by smugglers, they have only in the last few months prompted airport closures.
The Baltic state, a member of NATO and the European Union, has long accused Belarus, a close ally of Putin’s Russia, of organizing “hybrid warfare.”
The activity, which amplified in October, caused Lithuania to close its two border crossings with Belarus at the end of the month.
Belarus then prevented Lithuanian trucks from driving on its roads and barred them from leaving the country without first paying a fee, which Vilnius decried as “being held hostage” by Belarus.
Thousands of Lithuanian lorries remain stuck in Belarus, with Minsk calling for consultations with the Lithuanian foreign ministry.
Lithuania has instead called for harsher sanctions on Belarus.
