India has ordered Pakistan’s high commission to cut its staff by half on Tuesday and said it was withdrawing half the staff from its own high commission in Islamabad, in an escalation of already fraught relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
In a sharply-worded statement, New Delhi said Pakistani officials in India had “engaged in acts of espionage and maintained dealings with terrorist organisations” while authorities in Islamabad had sponsored in “a sustained campaign to intimidate [Indian officials} from carrying on their legitimate diplomatic functions”.
India also said Pakistani officials’ conduct was a violation of the Geneva Convention and “an intrinsic element of a larger policy of supporting cross-border violence and terrorism,” prompting the decision to pare back staff at the missions.