No third-party intervention in ceasefire with Pakistan: Jaishankar reiterates Modi's rebuttal amid Trump's repeated claims

New Delhi: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rebuttal on Tuesday could not make United States President Donald Trump stop claiming credit for the May 10 ceasefire between India and Pakistan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar reiterated on Wednesday that no foreign leader had a role in halting the cross-border military flare-up.

“No leader, nobody in the world, asked India to stop its operations (against Pakistan). This is something the prime minister also said,” the external affairs minister said in the Rajya Sabha, intervening in the special discussion on “Operation Sindoor” – the military offensive New Delhi launched on May 7, targeting terrorist camps in Pakistan and areas under illegal occupation of Pakistan in response to the April 22 carnage in Jammu and Kashmir.

Jaishankar, a diplomat-turned-politician, also hit out at the opposition Congress for not strongly responding to previous attacks carried out in India by the terrorist organisations based in Pakistan or areas under the control of Pakistan during its stint in power.

He said that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s government, led by Narendra Modi, was now setting things right and India would continue to respond appropriately and befittingly to every attack carried out by the terrorist organisations sponsored by Pakistan, and would not yield to any nuclear blackmail.

He also blamed the Congress-led governments in New Delhi for the close ties between Islamabad and Beijing, which, according to him, started in the 1960s, when Pakistan had illegally handed over a part of India under its illegal occupation to China.

He criticised India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, for signing the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan in 1960.

“I cannot think of any other agreement in the world where a country has allowed its major rivers to flow into another country without retaining rights over them,” he said, adding that the treaty, which New Delhi had put in abeyance in response to the April 22 carnage in J&K would remain so as long as Pakistan would continue to export terror to India.

“Blood and water will not flow together,” added the external affairs minister.

Just a few hours after Modi told the Lok Sabha that no world leader had asked India to stop its military offensives against Pakistan on May 10, Trump once again claimed credit for the ceasefire between the two South Asian neighbours. The US president told journalists aboard Air Force One, his official aircraft, that India had ended the war with Pakistan at his request.

Jaishankar on Wednesday reiterated in the Rajya Sabha what Modi told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday – that India had halted its military offensive following a request from Pakistan.

“There was no linkage of trade in any of these conversations (between US officials and their counterparts in India), and there was no talk between the Prime Minister and President Trump.”