ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on Saturday issued a directive for the return of 500 Iraqi military personnel undergoing training in Pakistan in light of recent violent escalations between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region.
 
The prime minister “directed the return of a group of 500 trainees, including officers and enlisted soldiers…who are currently in Pakistan under a prior training agreement, to Iraq,” read a statement by the Iraqi defense ministry on Saturday.
 
The statement detailed that the directive “is in the interest of the safety of our… armed forces, and the Ministry of Defense has taken the necessary measures to return them to Iraq.”
 
The withdrawal order comes as tensions have risen between India and Pakistan in recent days over the contested region of Kashmir. The neighbors began targeting each other after India launched airstrikes on the Pakistan-administered Kashmir area targeting “terrorist infrastructure,” prompting retaliatory strikes from Pakistan.

A team of Iraqi military personnel "arrived in Pakistan in December last year," according to the state-run Radio Pakistan, who went on to add that the training took place “at the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC).”
 
The article, published in mid-March, continued to state that Pakistan would offer training to more Iraqi Special Forces at the facility in question, which boasts "modern facilities" and is a key hub for international military cooperation. 

The exchanges of fire—the most violent clash between the two nuclear-armed countries in over 20 years—have claimed dozens of civilian lives between the neighbors since hostilities ramped up on Wednesday.
 
India and Pakistan have been caught in an irredentist conflict over Kashmir for decades. The two neighbors have locked horns over the disputed province—now divided into two administrations controlled by India and Pakistan—ever since the formation of the two countries upon independence from British rule in 1947.
  
Military training cooperation between Iraq and Pakistan dates back to 1955, according to Radio Pakistan, when the Pakistani army agreed to train Iraqi forces upon “the request of the Iraqi army.”