'The crescendo is rising': Pakistan's high commissioner to UK on 'retaliating if attacked' by India
Watch in full: Pakistan's High Commissioner told ITV News International Affairs Analyst Rageh Omaar after a deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir has left tensions at boiling point
The issue of Kashmir has not just been a deep political and strategic wound between India and Pakistan for over 70 years, it has also been the principal spark from which numerous military confrontations between these two nuclear armed nations have been ignited.
And so it proves now.
Last week India accused Pakistan of aiding and abetting militants behind an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people.
The Indian authorities said that at least two of the four attackers were Pakistani nationals, something that Pakistan has strongly rejected.
The accusations and counter-accusations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir are nothing new.
However what matters is in the most recent case, accusations have gone several levels higher and have seen India taking military measures that indicate it is considering a strike against Pakistan - for what it says is a Pakistani inspired and supported attack.
Speaking to ITV News, Dr Mohamed Faisal, Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom was frank.
Whilst saying that Pakistan was concentrated on de-escalating the situation, he said that if attacked, Pakistan would "definitely" respond.
"There should be no doubt," he said.
"If the Indians attack they would be appropriately answered - but we don't want that. This is not our desire. We want peaceful resolution."
Notably he indicated that regional and global powers were acting as third-party go between to make sure that this latest crisis over Kashmir did not come to open conflict - something he said no one in the region wanted to see.
He said it would be 'undiplomatic' of him to say who those powers were, but said several such nations were involved.
It was also interesting to hear him say openly that this conflict mattered because both India and Pakistan were nuclear powers.
Nations outside of the so-called 'Nuclear 5' - The United States, Russia, China, the UK, and France who are officially recognized as nuclear-weapon states by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) - rarely speak about it their nuclear status.
But to hear an acknowledgment that India and Pakistan are nuclear powers is interesting.
This crisis could easily have escalated rapidly over the past four days into open conflict.
Asked if things were worsening between the two countries, Dr Faisal said: "The crescendo is rising, the plateau has not happened. The downward spiral begins after the plateau."
The fact it hasn't is a sure sign that major powers are making sure it doesn't - and that was clear from Dr Faisal's interview with ITV News.
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