Islamabad, Pakistan – Armed with gunmen standing on the brink of military stalemate in Pahalgam, India, India and Pakistan, India, and Pakistan, shot 26 people dead after Indian-managed Kashmir.
Since the April 22 attack, nuclear-armed neighbors have announced a series of tit steps targeting others, with India implicitly blaming Pakistan for Islamabad denies any role in killing.
India suspended its participation in the Indian waters treaty, which implements the moisture-based mechanism Pakistan relies on. Pakistan threatened to leave the 1972 Simla Agreement, which promised both countries to recognize the former ceasefire line as a Line of Control (LOC) (LOC) – a de facto border – between Kashmir, it is a disputed area where each of them controls partially, but both claim to be all. The two countries also expel each other’s citizens and expanded their diplomatic mission.
Despite a ceasefire agreement since 2021, the current escalation is the worst since 2019, when India launched an air strike on Pakistani soil after attacking Indian soldiers on Indian-managed Kashmir, killing 40 soldiers. In recent days, they have had a fire across the LOC.
And, with India’s expectations of a military operation this time, the region is now on the edge.
However, both countries also hired diplomatic partners. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar urged both sides to seek a way to downgrade. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, on Thursday to condemn the attack and provided “strong support” to India.
Sharif met envoys from China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three of Pakistan’s closest allies, seeking their support and urging ambassadors of the two Gulf countries to “impress India to reduce and weaken tensions.”
To understand how Pakistani strategists who make connections with India see what will happen next, Al Jazeera spoke with former Prime Minister Moeed Yusuf of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who served as National Security Advisor of Pakistan (NSA) between May 2021 and April 2022.
Before serving as National Security Agency (NSA), Yusuf also served as special adviser to Khan, and has been on matters related to national security since December 2019, revoking the special status of Indian-managed Kashmir four months after the Indian government Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on the right, held a meeting with Saudi Arabian Ambassador Nawaf bin Saeed Al-Maliky, which was held in Islamabad on 2 May 2025. [Handout/Prime Minister’s Office]
Based in Lahore, Yusuf is currently the vice president of a private university and has written and edited several books on security in South Asia and the region. His latest book, Peace in the Nuclear Environment: American Crisis Management in South Asia, was published in 2018.
Al Jazeera: How do you evaluate the actions taken by both sides in the crisis?
Moeed Yusuf: India and Pakistan have long struggled when it comes to crisis management. They do not have a bilateral crisis management mechanism, which is a fundamental problem.
The first crisis management tool used by both parties is a dependency on third parties, and the idea is that they will try to limit both and help eliminate the crisis.
This time, I think the problem India has is that they follow the old script, but the most important third-party American leaders did not show up to support India.
A few days ago President Donald Trump showed that they have been neutral and let go so far. (Trump said he knows leaders in India and Pakistan and believes they can resolve the crisis on their own.)
Pakistan’s reaction is directly related to India’s reaction, and historically this is the case with the two countries short selling each other. Many punitive steps have also been announced this time.
The problem is that even if things get better, they are hard to reverse, but hard to reverse, and they may want to do so.
Unfortunately, in every crisis between them, the retaliatory steps became increasingly substantial, as in this case, India had decided to temporarily hold the Indus Water Treaty, which was illegal because the treaty did not provide such provisions.
Al Jazeera: Do you think the strike is imminent, if both sides express preparations for a showdown?
Yousuf: At such a moment, it is impossible to say. Action from India is still reasonable and possible, but the upcoming window is really focused.
What usually happens in a crisis is that countries take over troops or logistics movements, or their allies inform them, or they rely on ground intelligence to determine what might happen. Sometimes these can be misread and can lead to an offensive side seeing an opportunity that does not exist, or it may be that the defensive side believes that an attack may occur in the case.
Pakistan naturally must show a commitment to prepare for any possibility. You don’t know what’s going to happen next, so you have to be ready.
That being said, I don’t think we’ll see a major war, but in this case you can never predict that a misunderstanding or misestimation can lead to something important.
Al Jazeera: How do you view the role of the United States, China and the Gulf countries in this crisis and how do you compare it to what was before?
Yousuf: My last book, Brokering Peace (2018), is a third-party management in the Pakistan-Indian context, which is a crucial factor for both, as they have internalized it and built it into their calculus and therefore inevitably enter third-party countries.
The idea is that third-party mediators will step in and both countries will agree to stop because that is what they really want, not further escalation.
Since the 1999 Cargill War, the leader of the third-party states has been the United States (Pakistan forces crossed the LOC to try to control the strategic heights of Cargill in Ladakh, but India eventually managed to regain territory. At the time, U.S. President Bill Clinton attributed the conflict.)
Everyone else, including China, ended up supporting the U.S. position, which prioritized immediate downgrade during the crisis.
Things changed a bit during the 2016 surgical strike and the 2019 Pulvama crisis, when the United States leaned towards the Indian side and might even unknowingly inspired their actions in 2019.
(In 2016, Indian troops launched a cross-border “surgical strike”, New Delhi said armed fighters planned to attack India after gunmen attacked Indian Adminested Kashmir in an army base in Uri, Kashmir, three years later, Indian fighters blew up bases in New Delhi, referring to “terrorists”, Pak is Pakan and Pak is Pakan. 40 soldiers were killed in the attack on Indian troops.
But this time, you have a president in the White House who turns around and tells Pakistan and India to figure it out on their own.
I think this is bigger than Pakistan because for Pakistan, they have violated the possibility of strong U.S. support in recent years, believing that they are too close to India due to their strategic relationship.
But India originally wanted Americans to let go of their pace and Pakistan’s pressure, which was not entirely achieved. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s phone call played in the middle again, and they told both countries to get rid of the war.
So, strangely, what they did is still playing a role in stopping India from retreating, as India (so far) has not been as bold as it did during the Pulwama in 2019.
The Gulf countries have played a more active role than before. China also made a binding statement.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been in power since 2014 and remains tense in relations between India and Pakistan [Abdul Saboor/AP Photo]
Al Jazeera: How did Pakistan and India develop in recent years?
Yousuf: The relationship between the two countries has changed. When I took office, despite serious problems and India’s unilateral move in Kashmir in 2019, we saw a ceasefire agreement on control channels and post-channel negotiations.
We try to move forward and reduce India’s motivation to destabilize Pakistan, but I think India has lost opportunities due to its own stubbornness, arrogance and ideology that continue to force them to demean and threaten Pakistan.
This also led to changes in Pakistan, where leaders are now convinced that the policy of restraint has not been implemented and India abused and abused Pakistan’s dialogue proposals.
The current view is that if India does not want to speak, Pakistan should not beg. If India does lend a helping hand, we may respond, but Pakistan has no despair at all.
This is not a good place for any country. I have long believed and argued that ultimately it is going to get Pakistan to where we want economics, India is going to get where it says it is going to the region, and it won’t happen unless both improve their relationship. But, for the moment, with the current Indian attitude, unfortunately, I have little hope.
Al Jazeera: Do you expect any direct India-Pakistan talks at any level during or after this crisis?
Yes – I don’t know when or will pass or be with whom, but I think the key lesson that Indians might walk away once all of this is trying to isolate Pakistan doesn’t work.
Indian Moisture Treaty Suspends? Potential pause of Simla protocol? These are big decisions and both countries will need to discuss to address these issues, and I think they will be involved at some point in the future.
But I also don’t think Pakistan will move towards reconciliation, as we have provided many opportunities for dialogue lately, but to no avail. Like I said, Pakistan’s sentiment also solves this problem firmly.
Ultimately, the Indians basically need to decide whether they want to talk. If they come out, I think Pakistan will still react positively to that.
*For clarity and simplicity, this interview was edited.
