The Foreign Office says Pakistan remains committed to the Makkah Accord but will not discuss how it would be applied (Express Tribune).
What the spokesman said
Sajjad Haider Khan, at Thursday’s weekly briefing, said Pakistan stands by the accord’s “intent and spirit”, and on the question of deployment: “Operational confidentiality requires some discretion at this stage.”
The word that changed
Deployment. On 10 September the same spokesman called a military response “hypothetical” and said there was “no discussion of this kind”. Today the discretion being claimed is specifically about deployment details.
A government does not invoke operational confidentiality over a subject it considers hypothetical.
On the Makkah drone
Khan quoted the prime minister’s condemnation, including that there could be “no words strong enough” to convey Pakistanis’ anguish over a “reprehensible and unforgivable incident”.
Pakistan expressed concern at “continuing escalation and its implications for regional peace, security, maritime navigation, as well as global energy supplies”, while urging dialogue.
The other protest
Pakistan summoned India’s chargé d’affaires and lodged a “strong protest” over an incident on 15 September involving an Indian naval vessel in Pakistan’s exclusive economic zone during the Sea Spark 26 exercises. Pakistan called it a “serious violation of international law”.
That is a significant item to surface at a routine briefing and it has had little attention next to the Gulf. An EEZ is not territorial sea — coastal state rights there are economic rather than sovereign, and warships retain navigational freedoms under UNCLOS. What makes an incident of this kind a protest rather than a routine transit is proximity to a live naval exercise, and neither government has described what actually occurred.
Also raised
A visit by Lebanon’s interior minister; coordination with the IAEA on regional tensions; an SCO-RATS counter-terrorism meeting hosted by Pakistan; and confirmation that the prime minister will lead Pakistan’s delegation to the UN General Assembly.
What is not established
No detail of the Indian vessel’s conduct, position or the distance involved has been published, and India has not responded publicly. The FO gave no indication of what the Makkah Accord’s operational arrangements are or whether any have been activated.
[Image: The Express Tribune]
