Hours after Pakistan gave flight clearance to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plane to fly over the country's airspace en route to Bishkek to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit Thursday, India announced that Modi's plane will skip Pakistan's airspace and instead fly over Oman and Iran on its way to Kyrgyzstan. "The government of India had explored two options for the route to be taken by the VVIP aircraft to Bishkek. A decision has now been taken that the VVIP aircraft will fly via Oman, Iran and Central Asian countries on the way to Bishkek," Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi.
The statement comes soon after senior government sources here confirmed that Pakistan gave flight clearance to Prime Minister Modi's plane to use the country's airspace on his way to Bishkek on the request earlier received from the Indian government. "We took the moral high ground by allowing Prime Minister's plane to fly over Pakistan's airspace. It's up to the Indian government to take any decision," said a senior government official who requested anonymity.
However he further stated that "despite the announcement by India not to use Pakistani airspace en route to Bishkek, the factual position is that even for the route cited by New Delhi, Prime Minister Modi's plane will use Pakistani airspace from Karachi, Hingol to Iran/Oman over Gwadar, Balochistan." The official further explained that Pakistan opened two routes since March this year for Indian flights; one for traffic from India to Europe/Central Asia and second for traffic to India over Arabian sea towards Karachi, Hingol, Gwadar and beyond.
Later, Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal clarified the situation through a tweet, saying: "India requested two overflight clearances for Indian Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister. "After requisite processing, permission was granted earlier today (Wednesday). It is up to India what route it decides to use...Pakistan also granted flight clearance to earlier Indian request for EAM [external affairs minister] travel to Bishkek 21-22 May, 2019", he tweeted. Pakistan closed its airspace on February 26 this year after Indian Air Force (IAF) launched an aggressive ingress into Pakistani airspace which was followed by retaliatory action by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on February 27 leading to the downing of two Indian jets and capture of one Indian pilot. The IAF pilot was later released on March 1 as a 'peace gesture'. Since then, Pakistan has opened two routes out of a total of 11.
Earlier, in a statement on Wednesday, Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that Pakistan will open its airspace as a 'goodwill gesture' for the flight of Indian Prime Minister Modi to Kyrgyzstan. He said that an application seeking an opening of the airspace was received by Aviation Division from Indian High Commission on Monday, adding that Prime Minister Imran Khan after holding consultation with all stakeholders directed to open the airspace.
"The airspace will be opened for a period of 72 hours during which Air India plane B 747-400 will fly to Bishkek from New Delhi on Thursday and will return the next day", he said, adding that with the opening of airspace, the travel time for Indian flight will reduce to one and half hours. On May 21, Pakistan also approved Indian government's request and opened its airspace for the former Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj en route to Bishkek to attend the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers on May 21-22.
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