To the relief of an otherwise worried global diplomatic community, India and Pakistan today reached a binding deal for an immediate ceasefire and cessation of hostilities across their common border in Kashmir.
The deal effectively ends days of a dangerous escalation of military conflict between the two nuclear weapons states.
The crisis had been typified by mutual exchange of fire power that led to the deaths of scores on both sides and the destruction of vital assets.
The crisis began after gunmen, allegedly sponsored by Pakistan according to India, a
killed tourists in a part of Indian, administered Kashmir.
Pakistan denied the charges, as similar earlier ones, but it would appear that India never took it lightly.
Global concern was ignited when the misunderstanding led to the mutual exchange of heavy gunfire across their common border.
As a result, diplomats, reportedly from dozens of countries, waded in, ultimately leading to today’s historic ceasefire deal to end the worst crisis between the neighbours for more than 20 years.
On the heels of the announcement, American President Donald Trump, hailed both countries for using what he called their intellect and common sense, to resolve the crisis.
Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, which have only been deployed in battle field situations by America during the Second World War, in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Aside from both countries, other nuclear weapons states are America, which produces the first nuclear bomb under the Manhattan Project led by Enrico Fermi and Oppenheimer, Russia, which inherited the stock of the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and has the single largest stock of the deadly weapons, China, Britain, France, Israel and North Korea.
Iran is considered a nuclear- threshold country with its programme under strict watch by the Geneva-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the prodding of America and Israel.
South Africa is the only country south of the Sahara which had a nuclear weapon but it has since dismantled it.
