'I was in the room': Jaishankar reveals what PM Modi told JD Vance when India pounded Pakistan; rebuts Trump
NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday revealed the conversation took place between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States Vice President JD Vance when India pounded Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
During a Q&A session after an interview, Jaishankar was asked whether President Donald Trump's claim of using trade to halt the recent India-Pakistan conflict had impacted ongoing trade negotiations between New Delhi and Washington.
'No, I don't think so. I think the trade people are doing what the trade people should be doing, which is negotiate with numbers and lines and products and do their trade-offs. I think they are very professional and very, very focused about it,' Jaishankar said during an interview with Newsweek hosted at the publication's headquarters at One World Trade Centre near the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan.
He said that there is a national consensus in India that 'our dealings with Pakistan are bilateral.
'And in this particular case, I can tell you that I was in the room when Vice President (JD) Vance spoke to Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi on the night of May 9, saying that the Pakistanis would launch a very massive assault on India if we did not accept certain things".
'And the Prime Minister was impervious to what the Pakistanis were threatening to do.
On the contrary, he indicated that there would be a response from us. This was the night before and the Pakistanis did attack us massively that night, we responded very quickly thereafter," Jaishankar said.
"And the next morning, Mr (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio called me up and said the Pakistanis were ready to talk. So I can only tell you from my personal experience what happened. The rest I leave to you," he said.
India launched Operation Sindoor in retaliation for the Pahalgam massacre, striking at terror infrastructure inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), had claimed responsibility for the attack. In the operation, the forces hit hotbeds of terror in Pakistan's Bahawalpur and Muridke.
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