India and Pakistan Summon Diplomats After Arabian Sea Naval Collision

India and Pakistan summoned each other’s top diplomats after two of their naval vessels collided in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, each side blaming the other and accusing the other of violating a 1991 confidence-building agreement, BBC News reported. The encounter is the first direct military contact between the nuclear-armed neighbours since their short May 2025 air conflict, and it quickly spilled into parallel protests in Delhi and Islamabad.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it lodged a strong protest with Pakistan’s charge d’affaires over what it called “unacceptable and unprofessional conduct” that led to a collision with an Indian Navy unit in international waters, and said there was no major damage. Pakistan’s Foreign Office countered that its navy was running the biennial SEASPARK-26 exercise inside its exclusive economic zone when an Indian vessel carried out aggressive manoeuvres in dangerously close proximity, calling the action “highly provocative and unacceptable.”

Al Jazeera reported that Pakistani statements and local coverage identified the Indian ship as guided-missile destroyer INS Kolkata and the Pakistani vessel as offshore patrol vessel PNS Hunain, while noting that neither government named the ships on the record and that India has not confirmed the Kolkata identification. Pakistan said Kolkata made a dangerous course change on September 15 that brought the ships into contact; India said its warship was on routine surveillance when a Pakistani vessel approached at high speed and manoeuvred unsafely.

Both capitals invoked the 1991 Advance Notice on Military Exercises agreement. India specifically cited Article 10, which requires naval vessels and submarines to stay at least three nautical miles apart in international waters. Pakistan framed the Indian presence as an intrusion into its exercise area that began days earlier, and urged the international community to press New Delhi to refrain from actions that could further destabilise South Asia.

Analysts quoted by Al Jazeera warned that the two sides lack a bilateral Incidents at Sea pact or a navy-to-navy hotline, leaving little agreed procedure after a bump at sea. The last similar scrape—between PNS Babur and INS Godavari in the Gulf of Aden in 2011—faded without lasting escalation; whether this week’s collision follows that path depends on the next diplomatic steps as both publics remain primed after last year’s fighting.