Defence minister denies India bowed to pressure to end fighting with Pakistan

Dubai Eye

5 days ago

India's defence minister said on Monday that New Delhi had ended its military conflict with Pakistan in May as it had met all its objectives and had not responded to pressure, rejecting US President Donald Trump's claim that he brokered the truce.
Rajnath Singh was speaking at the opening of a discussion in parliament on the April 22 attack in India's Jammu & Kashmir, in which 26 men were killed.
The attack led to a fierce, four-day military conflict with Pakistan in May, the worst between the nuclear-armed neighbours in nearly three decades.
"India halted its operation because all the political and military objectives studied before and during the conflict had been fully achieved," Singh said.
"To suggest that the operation was called off under pressure is baseless and entirely incorrect," he said.
Singh's comments came as the Indian Army said that it had killed "three terrorists" in an intense gun battle in Indian Kashmir on Monday.
Indian TV channels said the three were suspected to be behind the April attack.
Pakistan thanked Trump for brokering the agreement but India said Washington had no hand in it and that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed between themselves to end the fighting.
"At no stage, in any conversation with the United States, was there any linkage with trade and what was going on," Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, referring to Trump's repeated remarks that he had used the prospect of trade deals between Washington and the two countries as leverage to broker peace.
There was also no conversation between Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi between the day of the Kashmir attack when Trump called to convey his sympathy and June 17 when Modi was in Canada for the G-7 summit, Jaishankar told parliament.
Indian opposition groups have questioned what they say is the intelligence failure behind the Kashmir attack and the government's inability to capture the assailants - issues they are expected to raise during the parliament discussion.
They have also criticised Modi for coming under pressure from Trump and agreeing to end the fighting, along with reports that Indian jets were shot down during the fighting.
Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in combat, and India's highest ranking general told Reuters that India suffered initial losses in the air, but declined to give details.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir has been at the heart of the hostility between India and Pakistan, both of whom claim the region in full but rule it in part, and have fought two of their three wars over it.
India accuses Pakistan of helping separatists in its part of Kashmir, but Pakistan denies this and says it only provides diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris seeking self-determination.