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Pakistan deputy PM vindicates India's stand on Op Sindoor ceasefire, confirms Modi govt rejected US mediation
Pak deputy PM says Islamabad raised mediation with US secretary of state Marco Rubio, to which he said India did not support any outside involvement
Pakistan has said India did not agree to third-party mediation during hostilities between the South Asian neighbours in May, thus vindicating the stand of PM Narendra Modi's government that US President Donald Trump's claims of brokering a ceasefire amid Operation Sindoor in May are incorrect.
Pakistan's deputy prime minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar said on Tuesday in an interview with Al Jazeera that Islamabad raised the issue of third-party mediation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to which the US official responded that India does not support outside involvement.
"Incidentally, when the ceasefire offer came through Secretary Rubio to me on the 10th of May... I was told that there would be a dialogue between Pakistan and India at an independent place... When we met on the 25th of July during a bilateral meeting with Secretary Rubio in Washington, I asked him 'What happened to those dialogues?', he said, ‘India says that it is a bilateral issue’," Dar said.
While Trump has repeated his claim over two dozen times, India has categorically denied that the Americans mediated to bring about a ceasefire. This sovereign stand was reported to be a factor behind Trump's aggressive trade tariffs on India, but that matter has since cooled as the US resumed talks after PM Narendra Modi's eastward move to underline a friendship with Russia and effect a thaw with China.
India carried out precision military strikes under Operation Sindoor on nine terrorist infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). This was in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that claimed the lives of 26 people.
Trump, since then, has said his administration used trade as leverage to stop avert a potential nuclear war.
India has said the ceasefire was achieved through direct military-to-military talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two nations.
The Pakistani foreign minister also said in the interview that his country won't "beg" for engagement with India, but was ready for “comprehensive talks”. India has said terror must stop before any talks can happen.
"We don't mind (mediation), but India has categorically been stating it's bilateral. We don't mind bilateral. However, the dialogues must be comprehensive, encompassing discussions on terrorism, trade, the economy, and Jammu and Kashmir. All these subjects which we have both been discussing," he said.
"… but obviously it takes two to tango. So, unless India wishes to have dialogue, we can't force dialogue. We don't wish to force dialogue," Dar added.
(with ANI inputs)
