Two protests, one contact

Pakistan's Foreign Office tied Tuesday's contact to SEASPARK-26, the biennial exercise it says has run inside its exclusive economic zone since 1 September, and said an Indian ship had tried to enter the exercise area since 7 September before a 15 September course change produced contact. India's External Affairs Ministry placed the same ship on routine surveillance in international waters and said a Pakistani vessel closed at high speed in an unsafe manner.[1]

Each capital summoned the other's chargé d'affaires. India said Article 10 of the 1991 notice agreement, the three-nautical-mile rule in international waters, had been broken; Pakistan said the Indian ship broke the same clause. New Delhi said there was no major damage. Pakistan's statement did not make the damage position clear. No independent track data has been released, and the hull names circulating in Pakistani local media have not been confirmed by New Delhi.[1]

A distance rule is not an inquiry

Retired vice admiral Ahmad Saeed told Al Jazeera there is no bilateral Incidents at Sea agreement of the kind the United States and the Soviet Union signed in 1972, and no navy-to-navy hotline. Article 10 sets a distance. It does not set manoeuvring rules or a post-incident investigation step. That is why each side can simply accuse the other.[1]

That gap also lets the protests be read as domestic signalling: each capital tells its public the other side was unprofessional and the file closes. The alternative is that both navies closed without intending a collision and a diplomatic note is the only tool on the shelf. The statements in the published statements do not supply an inquiry that would separate those readings.[1]

The host cannot table itself

The 12 September column Delhi sets the BRICS agenda while two straits set the terms left open whether BRICS has any way to carry a maritime-safety problem onto the shared agenda when a member is a party. This Arabian Sea contact fills that question: a bump with no inquiry drill is two national protests, not a communiqué item. If no public BRICS text names the Arabian Sea collision by 31 October, the missing mechanism will have been confirmed.[1], [2]