India-Pakistan navy ship collision sparks alarm over unintended escalation

Pakistan says an Indian warship entered its EEZ, while India says the collision occurred in international waters.

Pakistan's warship PNS Tippu Sultan during the AMAN-25 for Peace exercise last February [File photo: Shahzaib Akber/EPA]

Islamabad, Pakistan — More than 16 months after India and Pakistan fought a four-day air war, firing missiles and drones at each other, the South Asian neighbours came the closest since then to a military face-off — this time in the Arabian Sea.

Indian and Pakistani naval vessels collided on Tuesday, setting off tit-for-tat accusations. Pakistan’s government summoned India’s top diplomat in Islamabad on Wednesday, mirroring action New Delhi had taken hours earlier when it summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires and lodged a protest of its own over the incident.

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The collision is the first direct military encounter between the nuclear-armed neighbours since their four-day conflict in May 2025, when Indian air strikes and Pakistani retaliation brought both countries closer to full-scale war than at any point in decades.

So far, details of what happened remain disputed. Neither government has released video, track data or an independent account – and each statement places the blame on the other’s vessel.

But analysts say it underscored the risks of unintended incidents in the seas that could potentially escalate into broader crises, when India and Pakistan have few military and diplomatic mechanisms left in place to defuse tensions.

According to Pakistan’s Foreign Office statement issued on Wednesday evening, the navy has been conducting its biennial SEASPARK-26 exercise inside its exclusive economic zone since September 1 .

A country’s EEZ extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from its coast. Its territorial waters are only 12 nautical miles (22km) from the coast, with the rest of the EEZ in international waters. While vessels from other countries can pass through a nation’s EEZ in international waters unencumbered, they cannot exploit the waters economically: that right belongs only to the country whose EEZ it is.

Pakistan said that an Indian vessel, identified as the guided-missile destroyer INS Kolkata, had “repeatedly” tried to enter the exercise area since September 7 .

On September 15 , it said, Kolkata made a “dangerous” change of course that brought it into contact with a Pakistani vessel identified in local media as PNS Hunain, an offshore patrol vessel.

“Pakistan strongly rejects this belligerent Indian action,” the Pakistani Foreign Office said, calling it a violation of a 1991 bilateral agreement requiring warships to stay at least three nautical miles (5.5km, 3.4 miles) apart in international waters.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the warship was on “routine surveillance” in international waters when a Pakistani vessel approached at high speed and manoeuvred unsafely.

Neither government has named the vessels in its own on-record statement, and India has not confirmed or denied the Kolkata identification.

The two navies last collided in June 2011, when Pakistani frigate PNS Babur brushed against Indian frigate INS Godavari in the Gulf of Aden, while escorting a merchant vessel freed from Somali pirates.

Each side blamed the other then too. That row faded within weeks.

Retired Vice Admiral Ahmad Saeed of the Pakistan Navy said the pattern — two ships pressing close without a clear intent to collide — was familiar from Cold War-era “bumping” incidents between Soviet and US ships in the Black Sea.

But he argued that India and Pakistan are worse placed to manage similar encounters.

“There’s no bilateral Incidents at Sea agreement, the kind the US and USSR signed in 1972, and no navy-to-navy hotline,” Saeed told Al Jazeera. “Article 10 sets a distance, but it gives no manoeuvring rules and no procedure for investigating an incident afterwards. That gap is exactly why each side can just accuse the other.”

Article 10 of the 1991 confidence-building agreement between the two nations requires warships to stay at least three nautical miles (5.6km, 3.5 miles) apart in international waters.

Saeed said the greater risk was what might follow the collision: sharper tactics such as fire-control radar lock-ons or helicopter overflights and eventually “a contact with actual casualties.”

Muhammad Shareh Qazi, a Lahore-based security and maritime analyst, however, pointed to the same 1991 agreement, which he said requires 30 days’ written notice before a military exercise, as well as international collision regulations that apply to both countries as signatories to the UN maritime convention.

“If this collision really had the potential to escalate militarily, you’d have noticed by now,” Qazi said. “There’s a tool for that, called chaff, fired just above the bow or stern purely to signal you could escalate if needed. Nothing like that happened here.”

Both navies also have their own internal accountability channels, he added, with a captain found to have acted without authorisation facing a court martial process separate from any diplomatic protest.

On fishermen routinely detained for straying across the Sir Creek boundary, which is not demarcated between India and Pakistan further south, Qazi said the link to incidents further out at sea was indirect but real.

“Clear demarcation could help close those ambiguities over time, by reducing the ambiguity around where and how these interactions are expected to occur,” he added.

Saeed was more cautious about how contained an incident like this would remain.

“This hasn’t stayed quiet. Both governments went public with protests within a day of each other,” he said, adding that what made the moment riskier than 2011 was that “both publics are primed after last year’s conflict, which was not the case in 2011.”

Similar close-quarters confrontations have become more frequent between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

In the most recent flare-up, on July 24 , Philippine officials said a Chinese vessel came within about seven metres (23 feet) of a Philippine fisheries boat near Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine-claimed reef that China has controlled since 2012, and that Chinese coast guard ships fired water cannon at Philippine vessels.

Whether this week’s collision follows that pattern or fades like the 2011 incident depends less on the ships than on what comes next diplomatically, Qazi said.

“If, in the next 24 to 48 hours, an official statement suggests there was a genuine cause to manufacture an incident for the purpose of escalation, then yes, there may be a real possibility of this happening again,” he added.

巴基斯坦称一艘印度军舰进入了其专属经济区，而印度则称碰撞发生在国际水域。

巴基斯坦军舰 PNS Tippu Sultan 于去年 2 月参加了 AMAN-25 和平演习。[资料照片：Shahzaib Akber/EPA]

巴基斯坦伊斯兰堡——在印度和巴基斯坦进行了为期四天的空战，互相发射导弹和无人机之后，16 个多月过去了，这两个南亚邻国自那以来最接近军事对峙的一次——这一次是在阿拉伯海。

周二，印度和巴基斯坦海军舰艇发生碰撞，引发双方互相指责。周三，巴基斯坦政府召见了印度驻伊斯兰堡最高外交官，此前数小时，新德里也召见了巴基斯坦临时代办，并就此事提出抗议。

列表 1/4：印度在阿拉伯海事件后召见巴基斯坦外交官

列表 2/4：印度和巴基斯坦是否正在为未来冲突中的海上对峙做准备？

列表 3/4 两胜两负：印度和巴基斯坦在战争一年后学到了什么

巴基斯坦在五十年后对其军事指挥结构进行全面改革的原因（共 4 条，第 4 条）

这是这两个拥有核武器的邻国自 2025 年 5 月爆发为期四天的冲突以来首次直接军事接触。当时，印度的空袭和巴基斯坦的报复行动使两国比几十年来任何时候都更接近全面战争。

目前，事件细节仍存在争议。双方政府均未公布视频、航迹数据或独立调查报告，而且双方都将责任归咎于对方的船只。

但分析人士表示，这凸显了海上发生意外事件的风险，这些事件可能会升级为更广泛的危机，而印度和巴基斯坦几乎没有其他军事和外交机制来缓和紧张局势。

根据巴基斯坦外交部周三晚间发表的声明，巴基斯坦海军自9月1日起在其专属经济区内举行了两年一度的“海星-26”演习。

一国的专属经济区（EEZ）从其海岸线向外延伸200海里（370公里）。其领海仅距海岸线12海里（22公里），其余专属经济区区域均属于国际水域。其他国家的船舶可以不受阻碍地通过一国的专属经济区，但不能对该区域进行经济开发：这项权利仅属于专属经济区的所有者。

巴基斯坦方面表示，一艘被确认为导弹驱逐舰“加尔各答”号的印度舰艇自9月7日以来“多次”试图进入演习区域。

9月15日，该组织称，加尔各答号改变了航向，与一艘巴基斯坦船只发生接触，当地媒体称该船只为巴基斯坦海军“胡奈因”号（PNS Hunain），是一艘近海巡逻舰。

巴基斯坦外交部表示：“巴基斯坦强烈反对印度的这种好战行为”，称其违反了1991年的一项双边协议，该协议要求军舰在国际水域保持至少三海里（5.5公里，3.4英里）的距离。

印度外交部表示，这艘军舰当时正在国际水域进行“例行监视”，一艘巴基斯坦船只高速靠近并进行了不安全的机动。

两国政府在各自的正式声明中均未提及船只名称，印度方面也未证实或否认与加尔各答有关的说法。

两国海军上一次发生冲突是在 2011 年 6 月，当时巴基斯坦护卫舰 PNS Babur 在亚丁湾护送一艘从索马里海盗手中解救出来的商船时，与印度护卫舰 INS Godavari 发生剐蹭。

当时双方也互相指责。但这场争吵在几周内就平息了。

巴基斯坦海军退役中将艾哈迈德·赛义德表示，这种两艘船在没有明显碰撞意图的情况下近距离靠近的模式，与冷战时期苏联和美国船只在黑海发生的“碰撞”事件类似。

但他认为，印度和巴基斯坦更难应对类似的冲突。

萨伊德告诉半岛电视台：“没有像美苏1972年签署的那种双边海上意外事件应对协议，也没有海军间的直接热线。第十条规定了航行距离，但没有规定行动规则，也没有规定事后调查事件的程序。正是由于这一漏洞，双方才能互相指责。”

1991 年两国签署的建立信任协议第 10 条规定，军舰在国际水域至少应保持三海里（5.6 公里，3.5 英里）的距离。

赛义德表示，更大的风险在于碰撞之后可能发生的事情：更激烈的战术，例如火控雷达锁定或直升机飞越，最终“与真正的伤亡人员接触”。

然而，拉合尔的安全和海事分析师穆罕默德·沙雷·卡齐指出，1991 年的同一项协议规定，军事演习前需提前 30 天发出书面通知，并且作为联合国海事公约的签署国，两国都应遵守国际防撞规则。

“如果这次碰撞真的有可能升级为军事冲突，你们现在应该已经察觉到了，”卡齐说。“有一种叫做箔条的武器可以做到这一点，它发射在舰艏或舰艉上方，纯粹是为了发出必要时可以升级冲突的信号。但这次并没有发生这种情况。”

他还补充说，两国海军都有自己的内部问责机制，如果发现有舰长未经授权行事，将面临军事法庭审判，这与任何外交抗议无关。

卡齐表示，经常有渔民因越过锡尔溪边界而被拘留，而该边界在印度和巴基斯坦南部之间并未划定。他指出，这与更远海域发生的事件之间的联系是间接的，但却是真实的。

他补充说：“明确的界限可以通过减少关于这些互动预计在何处以及如何发生的模糊性，帮助随着时间的推移消除这些歧义。”

赛义德对这类事件能被控制住的程度持更为谨慎的态度。

“这件事并没有就此平息。两国政府在一天之内相继公开举行抗议活动，”他说道，并补充说，与 2011 年相比，目前的情况更加危险，因为“去年的冲突之后，两国民众都做好了准备，而 2011 年时并非如此。”

中国和菲律宾在南海发生的类似近距离对抗事件越来越频繁。

在最近一次冲突中，7 月 24 日，菲律宾官员称，一艘中国船只在黄岩岛附近靠近一艘菲律宾渔船约 7 米（23 英尺）处。黄岩岛是菲律宾声称拥有主权的礁石，自 2012 年以来一直由中国控制。菲律宾官员还称，中国海警船向菲律宾船只发射了水炮。

卡齐表示，本周的碰撞事件是会遵循同样的模式，还是会像 2011 年的事件那样逐渐平息，与其说是船只本身的问题，不如说是接下来外交上的进展的问题。

“如果在接下来的 24 到 48 小时内，官方声明表明存在为了升级局势而人为制造事件的真实原因，那么是的，这种情况很有可能再次发生，”他补充道。