Shooting down of plane:
Pak complains to UN

ISLAMABAD Aug 26 (DPA) — Pakistan has lodged a complaint with the United Nations on the shooting down of its naval aircraft by India on August 10 and urged Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send a fact-finding mission to the region.

In a letter to the U.N. chief, Islamabad’s Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said the Indian act "of military aggression was a clear violation of the existing international norms relating to the inviolability of national borders’’.

He said the shooting down of an "unarmed plane’’ also ran counter to a 1991 bilateral agreement on the prevention of airspace violations.

Mr Aziz said the incident took place shortly after the crisis in the disputed Kashmiri region which had brought the rival armies on the verge of an all-out war.

The two-month stand-off between the two estranged South Asian neighbours ended after pro-Pakistan Kashmiri militants withdrew in July from the strategic heights in the Kargil sector at Islamabad’s request.

"The false and misleading claims made by the Indian side regarding the incident remain a continuing source of aggravation in the already tense relations between Pakistan and India,’’ Mr Aziz said in reference to an Indian accusation that the French-made Atlantique aircraft had intruded into its territory.

Islamabad denied the charge and said the Indian Air Force shot down the plane by an air-to-air missile well inside Pakistani territory, killing all 16 crew members on board.