India-Pakistan understanding negotiated directly by militaries: S Jaishankar
Indian officials have insisted that understanding was reached during talks between the Directors General of Military Operations of the two countries.
The understanding between India and Pakistan on May 10 to halt fighting and military actions was “negotiated directly” by the militaries of the two sides without the involvement of any other country, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Friday.
The trigger for the understanding after four days of hostilities was Indian military strikes that “hit [Pakistan] very hard” on the morning of May 10, Jaishankar said in an interview with Danish broadcaster TV 2 while responding to a question on the role played by US President Donald Trump in ending the hostilities.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that the US helped broker a ceasefire, even suggesting that he used trade as leverage to get India and Pakistan to stop fighting. Indian officials have insisted that understanding was reached during talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two countries.
“We had the conflict for a few days [and] we resolved that conflict for the moment in its particular military form through an understanding for the cessation of fighting and military action. And this was something that we negotiated directly between the militaries of the two countries,” Jaishankar said.
“The trigger for it was that after we had fighting for a few days, we hit them very hard on the morning of [May] 10...and that caused the Pakistanis to say, ‘Ok, we’re prepared to stop the firing and reach an understanding about how to deal with it.’”
Indian launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, striking terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Pakistan in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack of May 10 that killed 26 civilians. The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with the May 10 understanding.
Jaishankar reiterated the Indian government’s determination to combat terrorism, which he described as a key global challenge, and said: “We’ve had to grapple with a very serious terrorist attack in April and what followed was a consequence of that. Because the terrorists were based in the neighbouring country and were operating with impunity and a high degree of state protection and support.”
He noted that European countries and the Western had backed Pakistan at times when it was under a military dictatorship and invaded India, a democracy. “Countries or groupings cannot say they will only do business with people who are like us,” he added, calling for a sense of realism.
However, Jaishankar said in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the tensions in West Asia that a “world leader who advocates conflict resolution and settlement as a as a broad principle obviously [has] to be welcomed”. The Covid-19 pandemic and multiple conflicts have resulted in “a very difficult world”, and the war in Ukraine has affected food, fuel and fertiliser prices, while the tensions in West Asia have “completely messed up shipping and maritime traffic between Asia and Europe”.
He said: “So we need today an effort, ideally collective, but we know realistically that it doesn’t work that way. Different countries need to find ways of, bringing down the temperature, getting people to talk...and we believe that is best done in situations where people talk to each other.”
He described Trump as a “product of his times” whose success is because he resonated with the situation in the US. “We do see today an over-concentration of manufacturing, we do see the international economy impacted, the rules of trade are impacted by subsidies and state support,” he said.
Referring to Europe’s major rearming programme and emphasis on security in the wake of the Ukraine conflict, Jaishankar said the region must become more strategically autonomous and more multipolar. One of India’s main objectives in Europe is the free trade agreement with the European Union (EU) that will lead to a “much deeper connect”. He added, “Europe is a good partner, it’s our largest economic partner. It’s a very important political partner. It’s increasingly a security partner.”
