KUWAIT: Kuwait expressed on Wednesday deep concerns and worry over the recent tensions between India and Pakistan. A statement by the ministry of foreign affairs affirmed Kuwait’s unwavering stance on supporting diplomacy and dialogue to resolve regional and international issues of concern.

The ministry called on all involved parties to practice self-restraint and avoid escalation, abiding by international rules and regulations concerning neighborliness and using dialogue to reach stability and security in the region and the world. Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya has in recent days spoken to both his Pakistani and Indian counterparts.

Pakistan said on Wednesday it had “credible intelligence” that India was planning an imminent military strike and vowed to retaliate, as worries of spiraling conflict grew over a deadly attack in Kashmir. Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors have plummeted since New Delhi blamed its archrival

Pakistan for last week’s assault on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, the deadliest attack on civilians there in a quarter of a century.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the military “complete operational freedom” to respond to the attack during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, a senior government source told AFP. Pakistan’s government has denied any involvement in the shooting, and information minister Attaullah Tarar said overnight that “any act of aggression will be met with a decisive response”.

“Pakistan has credible intelligence that India intends to launch a military strike within the next 24 to 36 hours using the Pahalgam incident as a false pretext,” Tarar said in a statement early on Wednesday. However, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar also said Pakistan would not strike first. Leaders around the world have expressed deep concerns and urged restraint by the uneasy neighbors who have fought several wars.

The US State Department said top diplomat Marco Rubio would call his Pakistani and Indian counterparts soon to urge them “to not escalate the situation”. UN chief Antonio Guterres held calls on Tuesday with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in which he “offered his Good Offices to support de-escalation”, his spokesman said in a statement. Sharif’s office said later he had urged Guterres to “counsel India” to exercise restraint, while pledging to defend Pakistan’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity with full force in case of any misadventure by India”.

Despite the heightened tensions, India and Pakistan’s top military generals held their normal weekly phone call on Tuesday. The two sides held a weekly call in which Pakistan “raised the ceasefire violation issue” on Tuesday along the Line of Control (LoC), the country’s army spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told a press conference, adding that the details of the routine call are not usually made public. A defense source in India confirmed the Director Generals of Military Operations in both countries talked over a hotline. The Indian side objected strongly to unprovoked firing happening from Pakistan,” an Indian source said.

Muslim-majority Kashmir, a region of around 15 million people, is divided between Pakistan and India but claimed in full by both nations. About 1.5 million people live near the ceasefire line on the Pakistani side of the border, where residents were preparing for violence by readying simple, mud-walled underground bunkers reinforced with concrete if they can afford it.

India’s military said on Wednesday it had repeatedly traded gunfire with Pakistani troops for a sixth straight night across the Line of Control (LoC), a heavily fortified zone of high-altitude Himalayan outposts that represents the de facto Kashmir border. A Pakistan security source said troops responded to “unprovoked firing” overnight, while another security source told AFP that two drones were shot down on Tuesday near the LoC “after violating our airspace”.

Since the Pahalgam attack there have been tit-for-tat diplomatic barbs, expulsion of citizens and border crossings shut. Modi vowed last week to pursue those who carried out the attack and those who had supported it. India and Pakistan have fought over the former princely state since their independence from British rule in 1947, with the border splitting generations of families. Rebels in the Indian-run area have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.

Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men accused of carrying out the Kashmir attack — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organization. They have announced a two million rupee ($23,500) bounty for information leading to each man’s arrest and carried out sweeping detentions seeking anyone suspected of links to the alleged killers. – Agencies