Pakistan, India agree to withdraw troops by end of May, resume iconic border ceremony

India said the Punjab land border ceremony, a popular tourist attraction, would reopen to the public on Wednesday, while Pakistan claimed it had never stopped the event

Pakistan and India have agreed to withdraw troop reinforcements deployed during their recent conflict back to their peacetime positions by the end of May, a senior Pakistani security official said on Tuesday.

More than 70 people were killed in the four-day conflict, which was sparked by an attack on tourists by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir last month that New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing – a charge it denies.

The military confrontation involving intense tit-for-tat drone, missile, aerial combat and artillery exchanges came to an abrupt end after US President Donald Trump announced a surprise ceasefire, which is still holding.

“Troops will be withdrawn to pre-conflict positions by the end of May,” the senior security official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The official said both countries agreed a phased withdrawal of the additional troops and weaponry deployed, mostly on the already heavily militarised de facto border in Kashmir, known as The Line of Control (LoC).

It comes after the Indian army last week said both sides agreed to take “immediate measures to ensure troop reduction from the borders and forward areas”.

“All of these steps were initially planned to be completed within 10 days, but minor issues caused delays,” the Pakistani official added.

Kashmir is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, which have fought several wars over the Muslim majority region since their 1947 independence from British rule.

The latest conflict began on May 7 when India launched strikes against what it said were “terrorist camps” in Pakistan, triggering an immediate response from Islamabad.

Border ceremony to resume

India said on Tuesday it would resume a daily border ceremony with neighbouring Pakistan, which it briefly halted earlier this month following the most serious conflict between the nuclear armed arch-rivals for decades.

India’s Border Security force said the sunset ceremony on its side would be open to the media on Tuesday and to the public on Wednesday at the Attari-Wagah land border in the northern state of Punjab.

Pakistan said it never stopped the ceremony, with its troops marching on its side of the border alone.

The ceremony however is expected to be a low-key affair with diplomatic measures against Pakistan still in place, including the closure of the land border.

For years, the ceremony at the Attari-Wagah border has been a popular tourist attraction.

Visitors from both sides come to cheer on soldiers goose-stepping in a chest-puffing theatrical show of pageantry.

The frontier was a colonial creation at the violent end of British rule in 1947 which sliced the subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

The daily border ritual has largely endured over the decades, surviving innumerable diplomatic flare-ups and military skirmishes.