Pakistan was forced to call for ceasefire – Indian ambassador
Vinay Kumar has told RT that India’s anti-terrorist response, not US mediation, led to Islamabad ceasing hostilities
RT, 14.05.2025
Q: Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Kumar, thank you so much for joining me here or rather inviting me here to the Embassy in Moscow. and first India and Pakistan well I guess I wouldn't be too far off if I were to say that hundreds of millions of people they breathed out in relief when they found out that it seems the countries have found an understanding, they have agreed to a ceasefire. I mean the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that now there will be a shift in the algorithms, in response algorithms, when it comes to how New Delhi is to react to any sort of escalation if it was to happen in the future. Could you please provide some detail and take me through what these new algorithms what this new norm could be when it comes to India.
Let me start by thanking you in the first place for coming over and talking to us. Let me take you back to what the genesis of this problem is. That is Pakistan's use of terrorism as a state policy. Now this time the attack that Pakistani trained a sponsor terrorist did in Pahalgam is among the most vicious attacks that you can imagine. People were identified by their religion, and shot at point blank range in front of their family members. This in a situation where normalcy was returning to Kashmir. Last year 26 million tourists visited the estate and the economy was being revived. So clearly this cowardly act had to be responded to. And that's what India did on 7th, 6th, 7th May night. And so far as we are concerned, the terrorist attack had been responded to, but Pakistan instead of understanding the gravity of the situation decided to escalate. And every escalation that they do had to be responded. Finally on the 10th they realised that they were moving on the wrong path and their DGMO, Director General of Military Operations called his Indian counterpart and offered ceasefire, which we agreed to. You referred to the Prime Minister's speech which he gave yesterday. Prime Minister has very clearly enunciated the new normal. That is, every terrorist act will be given befitting response on India's own terms. Two, there will not be any tolerance of nuclear blackmail. And number three, you have no acceptance of any differentiation between the government sponsoring terrorism and the mastermind of terrorists. So that's the new normal. Our expectation is that Pakistan will, like other countries in the region and like India itself, focus on meeting the aspirations of its people for socio-economic development rather than using terrorism as its state policy.
Q: Now, speaking of terrorism and the issue that you've brought up, the interview of the Pakistani Defence Minister went somewhat viral in which he pretty much admitted that Pakistan does indeed have relations with certain terrorist groups operating within the country and in fact Pakistan is sort of being used by the United States and the UK and these relationships between Islamabad and terrorist groups inside Pakistan. They're being exploited by the United States and the UK in the way that Pakistan is doing dirty work for Washington and London. Do you think that other nations and not just India, other nations who have suffered from this dirty work, quote unquote, should hold those terrorist groups and Pakistan and the United States and the UK accountable because it seems they are all working together there.
Now there are two parts to this issue. The first is saying that if Pakistan is doing somebody else's dirty work, then the question arises, is it a sovereign country or not? Second, the truth is that Pakistan has used terrorism against everybody possible. All major terrorist attacks in the world, 9-11 or in Mumbai, and also in other cities including London and Spain, you have signatures of terrorists being trained in the global universities of terrorism that Pakistan runs. So, blaming somebody else for its own failings is not something that impresses us at all. As a country that claims to be sovereign, we expect Pakistan to have its law, its legislation run all through its territory and be responsible for what happens on the territories Pakistan's control.
Q: Well Pakistan's assessment of the situation right now, at least publicly, has been that Pakistan has come out victorious out of this latest escalation. This is not the stance that India has on the matter, is it?
Well, I would only say that the call for ceasefire after the airstrikes that Indian Armed Forces carried over nearly 12 air bases across Pakistan shows that they were forced to sue for peace and ceasefire. And hence it was the Pakistani DGMO who called on 10th afternoon to his Indian counterpart and offered ceasefire.
Q: So another thing that you've already mentioned, that was the words of, again, of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, saying that India would not respond to any nuclear blackmail. And indeed there have been some reports, especially in the Western media, suggesting that there have been some alarming intelligence as to how far and how more dramatically this conflict between India and Pakistan could escalate, which is especially worrying given, well, the big elephant in the room is that both India and Pakistan, they have nuclear weapons. How much credibility is there to these reports because after all we do know that some Western media they really like to cite anonymous sources and saying that, well, some anonymous source, some reports, they suggest that this might have happened and only later to find out that that was not the case, that those sources, didn't exist in the first place or they just weren't credible at all so so i want to hear from you if there was again any credibility to those reports that indeed the two nations, India and Pakistan, were on the way and heading towards a truly disastrous escalation.
You know, let me say that it is not the first time that Pakistan's use of nuclear umbrella for getting other countries involved has been done. Can see first there would be the fear of massive conventional war, all out war, and so they would carry out these terrorist attacks since 1948 under that cover. After acquiring nuclear weapons through the smuggling and the running the Walmart of nuclear proliferation in 1990s. Which again books have been written and you are very well aware of. Now Pakistan has tried several times including in Kargil war of 1999 to use nuclear blackmail. Which in a way seeks to normalise its use of terrorism because any action against those terrorist infrastructures or people involved Pakistan would threaten use of nuclear assets. This does not impress us. Though I agree with you that there are elements and political commentators and countries which give a lot of credence to this fear. As Prime Minister has said, that we will not tolerate nuclear blackmail. And we will respond on our terms to every act of terrorism on Indian soil against Indians.
Q: Given the complexity of relations between India and Pakistan, we do have the ceasefire which is, again, it's great progress, if you were to ask me, but still we're not out of the woods yet. There have been several full-out wars between India and Pakistan. And given the complexity of relations I wanted to talk about Russia's role in helping mediate and helping New Delhi and Islamabad reach and find common grounds where the nations and politicians can so far. So has Russia played any role in helping reach this ceasefire? And is it playing a role right now as the two nations are moving forward to reaching a more tangible deal?
You know that ceasefire as I mentioned was bilaterally arrived at between the two DGMOs after they talked with each other. It has been India's longest standing that the issues concerning India and Pakistan, they need to be resolved bilaterally. So we do not want any external third party mediation in these relations. Yes, we do want global cooperation against terrorism. There are documents of UN Security Council and various UN committees on zero tolerance of terrorism. And that is something that the international community can play a role in eradicating this menace of terrorism not only from our region but across the world.
Q: It's interesting that you say that India doesn't want any third party getting too involved in this, that this ceasefire was bilaterally reached But if we look back at who broke the news first, That was Donald Trump. He sort of cut the line there, and he was the first to make a public announcement, as usual pat the United States on the back saying that the United States they played a huge in helping India and Pakistan reach this ceasefire, which you say now was a bilateral effort. So just looking at America's role here, is Donald Trump overselling here really America's help in this and America's involvement?
You know during the course of these two and a half weeks since the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on 22nd, A number of countries have issued a statement condemning the terrorist attacks. A large number of leaders have called our Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister, Dr. Jaishankar, In fact, Foreign Minister Lavrov called his counterpart and also President Putin spoke with the Prime Minister. And so there have been conversations with a large number of world leaders. The public statements were issued by our Minister and Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of External Affairs, about the takeaway from these conversations. In all those conversations you will see the emphasis on two points, zero tolerance for terrorism and any escalation from Pakistan will be responded to. So it is the result of these two policies, particularly the responses to the escalatory measures taken by Pakistan, which forced them to offer ceasefire, which was accepted by India.
Q: But still, do you think it is fair, the United States essentially talking for India, talking for Pakistan for that matter, and making these big announcements even before the leaders of two sovereign nations have a chance to do so?
Well, what I would say is any pressure on Pakistan, assure violence, terrorism is welcome.
Q: And I wanted to stop and talk a little bit about India. India as a state, it has existed for God knows how long, but independent, India's modern independent history as an independent stated starts back in 1947 India has absolutely flourished in these decades. What India has managed to achieve in these decades is truly remarkable. Yet at the same time, you will have some experts who will highlight the colonial past of India and in general the way the borderlines were drawn in 1947 some would say the people who were responsible for that they did not really understand that well the context of relations between what would become India and Pakistan. They did not understand the social the social situation and how the situation on the ground, what it looks like for ordinary people and that a lot of the problems that right now, a lot of the conflicts that India and Pakistan have faced between each other now, It stems directly from 1947 and from the colonial past. Do you think that the legal successes of those who did that, who drew these lines on the map, do you think they should be held accountable at least a little bit for what's happening right now?
You know, as you mentioned, India has existed forever. Thousands of years we have a civilization which is timeless. And today the value of the concepts, the practises, the scientific and technological developments, philosophical developments, insights that the Rishis and Saints on that land got is something that is being found useful and being propagated across the world. Our focus is on development, economic development of the country on technological development, focusing on meeting the ever-growing aspirations of Indian people. And in that way, see cooperation with everybody, among the most important of those relations that we have is with the Russian Federation decades long and very solid, very deep. So that's where we are looking at. And our thinking and our vision is forward looking. Rather than getting struck in the past which is past, like it has happened, it is affecting us today. True, but we cannot undo that. We can only do work for future and that's where we will be focused in coming years and decades.
Q: Speaking of the future, Russia has been a big trading and in general a geopolitical partner of India. And in the context of military imports for India, India has been using Russia's S-400 missile defence air defence systems. Russia and India have been jointly producing the BrahMos missiles. Do you think that New Delhi would be interested in expanding this cooperation further?
You mentioned this defence and also the joint production of Brahmos missile. There are several other systems that we co-manufacture and relations between our two countries, Russia and India. It is very deep in defence sector but also in several other sectors. Certainly we look forward to further diversification and also joint research, joint manufacturing of not only defence systems, but in other new cutting edge science and technology as well.
Q: Indeed, looking forward towards further future development and looking into the future. Mr. Kumar, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Igor.
https://www.rt.com/news/617516-india-forced-pakistan-ceasefire/
