Pakistan FM Admits India Never Accepted Third-Party Mediation, Undercuts Trump’s Ceasefire Claim
- By Thetripurapost Desk, Islamabad
- Sep 16, 2025
- 742
In a rare admission, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has said that India has never agreed to third-party mediation on bilateral disputes, directly contradicting former US President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that he had brokered a ceasefire following Operation Sindoor.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Dar stated, “India never agreed to any third-party mediation. We don’t mind third-party involvement, but India has categorically been stating it’s a bilateral matter. We don’t mind bilateral, but the dialogues have to be comprehensive, on terrorism, trade, economy, Jammu and Kashmir, all subjects that we have discussed earlier.”
Dar further revealed that while Washington had conveyed a ceasefire proposal in May and suggested neutral-ground talks, India firmly rejected any mediation. He said when he asked US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Trump’s mediation claims, Rubio clarified that India had “always maintained it is a bilateral issue.”
> “It takes two to tango. Unless India wishes to have a dialogue, we can’t force dialogue,” Dar added.
Trump, however, has long claimed credit for preventing a “potential nuclear war,” asserting that his mediation stopped hostilities. On May 10, Trump declared on Truth Social that the US had mediated an immediate ceasefire between India and Pakistan — a claim India consistently denied.
India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had categorically stated that the ceasefire understanding was reached only after Pakistan’s Director-General of Military Operations reached out to India requesting a halt to strikes. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also clarified that both sides had “worked out an understanding on stoppage of firing and military action,” without any external involvement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated India’s long-standing stance the next day, stressing that any talks with Pakistan would solely focus on terrorism and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
India has, since the 1971 Simla Agreement, maintained that all disputes with Pakistan will be resolved bilaterally. This is not the first time Trump’s claims have been contradicted — in 2019, India strongly refuted his assertion that Modi had asked him to mediate on Kashmir.
The latest admission by Pakistan’s foreign minister further undermines Trump’s narrative while reaffirming India’s consistent position that bilateral issues cannot be subjected to third-party intervention.