Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar
| Photo Credit:
–
Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar has said that India and Pakistan hotline, used to communicate with each other, was used by Pakistan on May 10 to request ceasefire and there was no international mediation.
Jaishankar reiterated that the recent cessation of hostilities with Pakistan was the result of a direct bilateral arrangement as US President Donald Trump has once again said that he mediated and facilitated Indo-Pak ceasefire.
The Ministry of External Affairs, in its media briefing on Thursday, maintained that any India Pak engagement has to be bilateral.
“Yes, we have a mechanism to talk to each other as a hotline. So, on the 10th of May, it was the Pakistani army which sent a message that they were ready to stop firing, and we responded accordingly,” Jaishankar said in an interview with the Netherlands-based broadcaster NOS.
The Minister acknowledged that other countries, including the United States, expressed concern and made calls to both sides, but he maintained that the ceasefire was negotiated exclusively between New Delhi and Islamabad.
“The US was in the United States,” Jaishankar answered when asked about Washington’s involvement. He said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had reached out to him and Vice President JD Vance had got in touch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but their role was limited to expressing concern.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that the US helped India and Pakistan reach a ceasefire despite India’s rebuttal. “If you take a look at what we just did with Pakistan and India, we settled that whole thing, and I think I settled it through trade. We’re doing a big deal with India. We’re doing a big deal with Pakistan,” Trump said at a White House meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday.
It was Trump who had first announced “full and immediate” ceasefire between India and Pakistan on his Truth Social Platform on May 10, before the two countries involved could do so.
“We made one thing very clear to everybody who spoke to us, not just the United States but to everyone, saying if the Pakistanis want to stop fighting, they need to tell us. We need to hear it from them. Their general has to call up our general and say this. And that is what happened,” Jaishankar said.
In a media briefing on Thursday, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said any India-Pakistan engagement has to be bilateral. “I would like to remind that talks and terror don’t go together,” he added.
Published on May 22, 2025