MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal at a press conference, in New Delhi on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit:
ANI
The Ministry of External Affairs has said that discussions with the US during the standoff with Pakistan did not involve trade and it was the force of Indian arms that compelled Pakistan to stop its firing.
This contradicts US President Donald Trump’s claim made on Monday that the US had helped put a stop to escalation in military tensions between India and Pakistan by using trade as an instrument to broker peace.
“From the time Operation Sindoor commenced on May 7 till the understanding on cessation of firing and military action on May 10, there were conversations between Indian and US leaders. The issue of trade did not come up in any of these discussions,” MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a media briefing on Tuesday.
Trump had asserted that the US stopped a nuclear conflict and millions of lives were potentially saved. “And we helped a lot, and we also helped with trade…. I said, if you stop it, we’re doing trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade. People have never really used trade the way I used it. By that, I can tell you, and all of a sudden they said, I think we’re gonna stop. And they have,” Trump said at a briefing on Monday.
Jaiswal said that it was force of Indian arms that compelled Pakistan to stop its firing. “You will of course appreciate that early on May 10 morning, we had mounted an extremely effective attack on key Pakistani Air Force bases. That was the reason they were now willing to stop firing and military action. Let me be clear. It was the force of Indian arms that compelled Pakistan to stop its firing,” he said.
The specific date, time and wording of the understanding was worked out between the DGMOs of the two countries at their phone call on May 10 commencing 1535 hrs, he said. “The request for this call was received by the MEA from the Pakistani High Commission at 1237 hrs. The Pakistani side had initial difficulties connecting the hotline to the Indian side for technical reasons. The timing was then decided based on the availability of the Indian DGMO at 1535 hrs,” Jaiswal added.
Published on May 13, 2025