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| India-Pakistan |
| India opens airspace to Pakistan |
| 2002-06-10 |
| India announced today it will allow Pakistani planes to resume using Indian airspace but held up other gestures designed to tone down tensions between the nuclear rivals. Pakistani planes still will not be allowed to land in India -- only fly over. Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Khan said he was waiting for a report from Pakistani diplomats who were being briefed on the developments by Indian officials before commenting further. "All I can say at the moment is that it is a step in the desired direction," he said. Indian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said removing the airspace restrictions was "not a small step," but her announcement fell well short of some expectations about the type of conciliatory gestures New Delhi might make to defuse the crisis between the neighbors. The airspace restrictions were implemented back in January, in the wake of the attack on Parliament, and they've been in force since then. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |