Jaishankar reiterates Pak first initiated truce talk

Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina during the inauguration of the Embassy of Honduras, in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit:
-@DrSJaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday reiterated that India’s relations and dealings with Pakistan will be “strictly bilateral,” which has been a national consensus for many years and there is “absolutely no change” in that consensus. The Foreign Minister’s assertion came in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that it was he who brokered peace between India and Pakistan.

Jaishankar underlined that Pakistan wanted cessation of firing to end four-day hostilities after the Indian military caused substantive damage to their key defence infrastructure on May 10.

He said India, after carrying out aerial strikes to dismantle nine terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), gave an option to Pakistan to “stand out and not interfere in this process.” The External Affairs Minister was repeating what Director General of Military Operations Lt Gen Rajiv Ghani had said in one of his briefings while the offensive was on.

“They chose not to take that good advice,” Jaishankar told journalists.

“Now, once they got hit badly, as they did on the morning of May 10, and all of you have seen today the satellite pictures which actually bring out very graphically how much damage we did. By the way, the satellite pictures also bring how little they did…the same people who were not willing to stand down on May 7 were willing to talk and stand down on 10th of May. It’s very clear who wanted cessation of firing,” the Minister stated.

Self-pro’claim’ing

The Foreign Minister’s assertion came a little after Trump repeated his claim again that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan.

“…And by the way, I don’t want to say I did, but I sure as hell helped settle the problem between Pakistan and India last week, which was getting more and more hostile,” he said for the sixth time on the cross border military exchanges while addressing US military personnel at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

The two neighbours, however, have decided to “continue the confidence building measures so as to reduce the alertness level” which was part of the understanding reached between the two DGMOs on May 10, said Army sources.

Though the firing has ended, the forces on the both the sides have not let their guards down.

Published on May 15, 2025