America, diplomatic back-channel communications and major regional players: How two nuclear powers on the brink of war agreed to a ceasefire

 

America, diplomatic back-channel communications and major regional players: How two nuclear powers on the brink of war agreed to a ceasefire

 

 

It was a dramatic turn in the four-day standoff between Pakistan and India when US President Donald Trump announced on social media that the two countries had agreed to an “immediate and complete ceasefire.”

 

Experts say behind-the-scenes US mediation, diplomatic back-channel contacts and major regional players played a key role in pushing the two nuclear powers back from the brink of full-scale war.

 

However, within hours of the ceasefire agreement, India and Pakistan accused each other of violations, underscoring how fragile the ceasefire is.

 

India accused Pakistan of “repeated violations,” while Pakistan vowed to implement the ceasefire and said its forces had “exercised responsibility and restraint.”

Before the ceasefire announcement, many feared that India and Pakistan were moving toward a major war with other measures.

Last month, 26 tourists were killed in an attack by gunmen in the Pahalgam area of ​​Indian-administered Kashmir. India launched airstrikes in Pakistan and its administered Kashmir, leading to days of aerial clashes and shelling. By Saturday morning, both countries had claimed missile strikes on air bases.

Tensions were rising rapidly. Both sides were claiming heavy losses and thwarting attacks by the other.

According to Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, a phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir on May 9 was “probably a turning point.”

“We still don’t know much about the roles of the international players,” she says. “But it is clear that over the past three days at least three countries have been active in reducing tensions: obviously the US, but also the UK and Saudi Arabia.”

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told Pakistani media that the diplomacy involved “three dozen countries,” including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

 

“The question arises why this call was not made earlier, immediately after the Indian air strikes, when Pakistan was initially claiming Indian losses and there was an opportunity to de-escalate tensions,” says Madan. “Perhaps this could have de-escalated tensions further.”

This is not the first time that US mediation has been useful in resolving a crisis between Pakistan and India.

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote in his book that during the 2019 tensions, an Indian counterpart woke him up and told him that he feared Pakistan was preparing to use nuclear weapons.

Former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria later not only rejected Pompeo’s claim but also said that the US role in resolving the conflict was not that big.

But diplomats say the US has undoubtedly played a key role in resolving the crisis this time.

“The US was the most important external player,” Bisaria told the  on Saturday. “Last time Pompeo claimed to have averted the threat of nuclear war. Maybe he is exaggerating. But he should have adopted a more basic diplomatic role. Maybe he should have made Delhi’s position clear to Islamabad.”

But initially the US stayed away from the tension.

As tensions rose, US Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that the US would not intervene in a war that “basically has nothing to do with us.”

“We cannot control these countries. It is fundamentally India’s fight with Pakistan... America cannot tell the Indians to surrender. We cannot tell the Pakistanis to surrender. So we will deal with this through diplomatic channels,” he said in a television interview.

Meanwhile, President Trump said, “I know both of them (the leaders of Pakistan and India) very well and I want them to find a way around this... I want them to stop and I hope they will stop now.”

Lahore-based defence analyst Ijaz Haider told the BBC that this was the difference in the past several escalations.

Speaking to the BBC, Ijaz Haider said, “The US role was a continuation of the past but there was a significant difference, this time they themselves did not become a formal party to it. They saw the crisis unfolding and did not immediately jump into it. Only when they saw where it was going did they come to handle the situation.”

Experts in Pakistan say that as tensions increased and the situation became more serious, Pakistan started giving ‘double signals’, taking military action and announcing that we were calling a meeting of the National Command Authority (NCA). This was a reminder of its nuclear capability.

In Pakistan, the NCA takes control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and makes operational decisions about them.

This was when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio decided that he would intervene.

Ashley J. Telles, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the BBC that “the US was very important. Without Secretary Rubio’s efforts, these results would not have been achieved.”

 

What also helped during all this was Washington’s deepening relations with Delhi.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal relationship with Trump is good, and America’s broader strategic and economic interests allowed the US administration to create the diplomatic environment that led the two nuclear powers to agree to a ceasefire.

According to Indian diplomats, this time too, ceasefire attempts were made in three ways, as was done after the Pulwama-Balakot incidents in 2019.

Pressure from the US and the UK

Mediation by Saudi Arabia, visit of Saudi junior foreign minister to both countries

Direct contacts between the national security advisers of both countries

After initial hesitation on the part of the US, it finally intervened and then emerged as the most important mediator between the two countries.

Whether the US role is exaggerated by its own officials during this time or not perceived as such in Delhi and Islamabad, experts believe that the US role in mediating the crisis is important and complex.

There were concerns about the sustainability of the ceasefire, as Indian media reported on Saturday that the ceasefire was actually brokered by senior military officers from both countries, not by the US.

Foreign affairs expert Michael Kugelman told the BBC that “this ceasefire will be fragile because it was done too quickly and in a very tense environment.” Unlike the US and Pakistan, it is being viewed differently in India.

“Because it has been done in a hurry, it may not contain the guarantees and assurances that are needed in such tense moments.”