‘Need to hear it from them’: Jaishankar says India told other nations that Pakistan had to talk directly for de-escalation

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar dismissed President Donald Trump’s claims that he mediated the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. “The US was in the United States,” he retorted, indicating that it had nothing to do with the India-Pakistan ceasefire. 

Speaking to Dutch broadcaster NOS, Jaishankar said the ceasefire was negotiated directly between the neighbours as India had specified that Islamabad had to talk to them directly. “The ceasefire was negotiated directly between India and Pakistan. We told everyone, including the US, that if they want an understanding, they have to talk to us directly. And that’s why it happened,” he said. 

While several countries had reached out to India in those four days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi specified to all the nations, including the US, that if Pakistan intended to stop fighting they needed to tell India themselves, he said.

"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," he said. 

He acknowledged that top officials of the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Vice President JD Vance, reached out to their Indian counterparts, but they only voiced their concerns. 

The de-escalation proposal came from the Pakistani side, he clarified. Jaishankar said that it was the Pakistani army that sent a message saying they were ready to stop firing and India responded accordingly. 

He, in the interview, also said that in order to understand the terror attack, one has to see that the Pakistani leadership and their army chief – referring to Field Marshal Asim Munir – are driven by “extreme religious outlook”. He was referring to Munir’s incendiary just days ahead of the Pahalgam terror attack that claimed the lives of 26 civilians, that propagated the two-nation theory, called Kashmir Pakistan’s jugular vein, and urged Pakistanis to tell stories to their children so that they could understand that they are “different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life”.