The neighboring countries exchanged fire for several days after India’s missile attack on Pakistan before reaching a ceasefire on Saturday.
Tensions between India and Pakistan significantly escalated last week, with the neighboring countries exchanging fire for several days after India’s missile attack on Pakistan.
While the two countries announced a full and immediate ceasefire on Saturday, experts say dangers in the region remain.
The United States conversed with Indian and Pakistani officials to broker the ceasefire, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
India on Saturday evening accused Pakistan of breaking the ceasefire, saying it is responding to the violations.
The recent attacks came after already rising tensions as India continued to blame Pakistan for a deadly attack in April in the disputed Kashmir region, a claim that Pakistan denies. That militant attack, known as the Pahalgam incident, left 26 people dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
«This is just the most recent in a series of conflicts between Pakistan and India», retired Col. Stephen Ganyard, an ABC News contributor and former State Department official, said. «Ever since the formation of Pakistan in the mid to late ’40s, these two countries have not gotten along.»
With both countries possessing nuclear weapons, the threat of escalation is especially concerning.
«Of any place in the world, the easiest to imagine a nuclear exchange happening is between Pakistan and India», Ganyard said. «You have these two neighbors with so much hate, so much history and lots and lots of nuclear weapons exchanging live fire.»Kashmir at center of conflict
The origin of the recent hostilities between Pakistan and India largely dates back to 1947, when they gained their independence from British rule, according to Surupa Gupta, a professor of political science and international affairs at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.
«When you think about the current conflict, it is really about Kashmir», Gupta .
Sovereign, princely states in the subcontinent were given the option to accede to India or Pakistan at the time of independence, but Kashmir was among several that did not, she said. Its ruler at the time eventually agreed to sign a treaty of accession with India after seeking its support against attacks on the state.
«Pakistan has never really recognized that treaty of accession», Gupta said. «Pakistan’s argument has always been that Kashmir was, and continues to be, a Muslim-majority region, whereas they see India as a Hindu-majority state. Which it is, but its origin story is as a secular state.»
A war between India and Pakistan erupted over the Himalayan region, and in 1949, the two countries agreed to establish a ceasefire line dividing Kashmir, which is highly militarized and monitored by the United Nations.
Today, India controls the southern half of the Kashmir region and Pakistan controls the northern and western portion, though both lay claim to all of Kashmir.
