“I’m very concerned,” Senator Payne said during a visit to London on Wednesday. “If those reports are correct we would certainly urge both sides to exercise restraint, to avoid further military action. This is a dangerous cycle of escalation.”
Asked by The Australian Financial Review if she would be evacuating staff from embassies there, or advising Australians to leave the region – as happened during a previous India-Pakistan military stand-off a decade ago – she said she was “expecting advice from our high commissioners on that matter”.
“That’s a matter that DFAT takes very seriously, both in terms of the safety of those that we have working in posts and also of course in terms of Australians travelling.”
In updated travel advice, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is urging people travelling to north India and Pakistan to contact airlines and monitor local media for guidance on flight details, after flights were suspended.
However, it has not changed the overall level of advice, telling Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Pakistan and not to travel to the border areas in Kashmir and with India.
Senator Payne called for the two countries to engage in direct dialogue. She dismissed a suggestion that the politics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid for re-election was responsible for the tension, pointing instead to the February 14 attack that left 40 Indian paramilitary police dead, which had “generated some significant angst for obvious reasons”.
“What does concern me though is the cycle of escalation, which is very dangerous for all concerned,” she said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has urged “a responsible” approach” following the incident. “The [nuclear] weapons they have and we have, can we afford a miscalculation?” the BBC quoted him as saying. “If we let it happen, it will remain neither in my nor Narendra Modi’s control.”
Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj was quoted by the BBC as saying her country would act “with responsibility and restraint”.
“India does not wish to see further escalation of the situation,” she said during a meeting with the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers in China.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt also called for both countries to step back. “Neither side wants to see this escalate further, but this is going to take really critical restraint in the days ahead,” he said.
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