Thiruvananthapuram (Odisha) [India], September 17 (ANI): Kerala BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Wednesday reaffirmed India’s firm stance against third-party mediation in matters with Pakistan and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will always safeguard the country’s interests.
He also took a dig at opposition leaders over their jibes at the government over US President Donald Trump’s earlier claims of mediation in the India-Pakistan conflict following Operation Sindoor.
“That is the position that our government has taken,” Chandrasekhar said, when asked about Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s remarks that India rejected third-party mediation on bilateral issues.
“PM Modi and EAM Jaishankar have said on the Floor of the House. If there is any person today in this world that we can trust 1000% to safeguard India’s interest today and always, is PM Narendra Modi. PM is a man whose DNA is built to ensure that India’s interests will never be compromised and he will never do it. So, there is no need to believe anybody else saying anything anywhere in the world, including in India our own Opposition leaders…” Chandrasekhar told ANI.
On Tuesday, in an interview with Al Jazeera, Ishaq Dar revealed that India categorically denied any third-party mediation in resolving bilateral issues with Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, contrary to claims made by US President Trump.
In the interview with the news outlet, Dar stated that Islamabad has raised the issue of third-party mediation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to which the US official responded that India does not support any outside involvement.
The Pakistani Minister, during the interview, recounted a specific interaction with Rubio regarding Trump’s claims of mediating the May 10 ceasefire between the two nuclear nations.
During a bilateral meeting on July 25 in Washington, Dar raised the matter again with Secretary Rubio, who reiterated that India maintained its position, stating the issue was strictly “bilateral”.
“Incidentally, when the ceasefire offer came through [US] Secretary [of State] Rubio to me on the 10th of May… I was told that there would be a dialogue between Pakistan and India at an independent place… When we met on the 25th of July during a bilateral meeting with Secretary Rubio in Washington, I asked him ‘What happened to those dialogues?’, he said, ‘India says that it is a bilateral issue,” Dar said.
Dar’s remarks contradict Trump’s repeated assertions that the US brokered the ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed neighbours amid heightened tensions during Operation Sindoor – India’s precision military strikes on nine terrorist infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), which came in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that claimed the lives of 26 people.
Indian Armed Forces repelled subsequent Pakistani aggression and pounded its airbases.
The cessation of hostilities took place after Pakistani DGMO called his Indian counterpart. (ANI)
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