Ceasefire with Pak was negotiated through DGMO-level talks, reiterates New Delhi

A day after China claimed credit for mediating between India and Pakistan during the brief but intense military confrontation in May, New Delhi on Wednesday firmly rejected the assertion.

Sources within the Indian establishment dismissed the claim outright, maintaining that the ceasefire was a strictly bilateral military arrangement. “The ceasefire between India and Pakistan was directly negotiated through the DGMO channel. India has already responded to such claims multiple times in the past and put them to rest,” a senior official said.

Earlier, speaking at the Symposium on the International Situation and China’s Foreign Relations, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing had played a role in easing “the tensions between Pakistan and India,” projecting China as a responsible global actor guided by “fairness and justice”.

“Following this Chinese approach to settling hotspot issues, we mediated in northern Myanmar, the Iranian nuclear issue, the tensions between Pakistan and India, the issues between Palestine and Israel, and the recent conflict between Cambodia and Thailand,” Wang said.

Notably, US President Donald Trump has also, on multiple occasions in the past, sparked diplomatic rows by claiming that he had personally intervened to stop a war between India and Pakistan, publicly stating that he used trade leverage to pressure both sides into de-escalation.

India has consistently and categorically denied any third-party role — whether by Washington or Beijing. New Delhi maintains that the ceasefire followed a request from Pakistan and was concluded through established military-to-military channels. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has earlier told Parliament that India does not accept mediation in bilateral matters and that decisions on national security are taken independently and in accordance with sovereign interests.

China’s latest remarks, seen in New Delhi as part of its broader effort to project itself as a global peacemaker, add another layer to competing international narratives over the brief but consequential India-Pakistan standoff.

Meanwhile, Congress general secretary and MP Jairam Ramesh questioned the government, seeking clarity on China’s alleged role in the ceasefire decision. In a post on X, Ramesh said Trump had claimed on at least 65 occasions, across multiple countries, that he personally intervened to stop Operation Sindoor, while PM Narendra Modi had remained silent on the assertions.

He said the issue had gained fresh relevance after the Chinese foreign minister also claimed that Beijing had mediated between India and Pakistan. Ramesh recalled that on July 4, 2025, Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Rahul Singh had publicly stated that India was effectively confronting China during Operation Sindoor, underlining that Beijing was decisively aligned with Pakistan at the time.

Against this backdrop, he said Chinese claims of mediation were troubling and raised serious concerns about how the operation was brought to an abrupt end. Ramesh warned that such assertions contradicted what Indians had been told about the operation and risked weakening the credibility of India’s national security narrative. He also linked the issue to the broader state of India-China relations, alleging that New Delhi’s re-engagement with Beijing had taken place largely on Chinese terms, and cited the Prime Minister’s June 2020 statement following the eastern Ladakh standoff as having weakened India’s negotiating position.