External Affairs Minister Jaishankar rejected US President Donald Trump’s claims of brokering peace between India and Pakistan. In an interview to the Dutch TV channel NOS in Amsterdam he said:
“On the 10th of May it was the Pakistani Army that sent a message that they were ready to stop firing and we responded accordingly,” Jaishankar said.
He acknowledged that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had “spoken to me (Vice President) Vance had spoken to our prime minister. They were talking to us and the Pakistani side as indeed were some other countries.”
“That happens naturally when two countries are engaged in conflict, it is natural that countries call up and sort of indicate their concern … but the cessation of firing and military action was something which was negotiated directly between India and Pakistan.”
“We made one thing very clear to everybody who spoke to us … if the Pakistanis want to stop the firing they need to tell us … their general has to all our general and say this, and that is what happened.”
“Stop pretending Pakistan is not involved in terrorist attacks in India,” he said, “We should not go along with the narrative ‘Pakistan does not know what is going on’.
“The most notorious terrorists on the UN list are in Pakistan. They operate in big cities in broad daylight. Their addresses are known .. their activities are known .. their mutual contacts are known. So let’s not pretend Pakistan is not involved. The state is involved. The army is up to its neck in it.”
He was clear that in the event of a terrorist attack, India would respond and India did respond during Operation Sindoor.
“The response targeted these nine places where there are terrorist centres … the places are all shown in the UN list … this is where the terrorists work live and operate from.”
After that the Pakistani military opened fire on India which went on for four days and on the 10th of May India struck back targeting eight airbases, making them non-functional.
“We hit their runaways, we hit their command centres,” Jaishankar said, “the operation continues because there is a clear message, if there are acts of the kind was saw on April 22nd, we will hit the terrorists. If the terrorists are in Pakistan we will hit them where they are.”
