New Delhi: Even as US president Donald Trump continued to claim that Washington was responsible for brokering the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, a position welcomed by Islamabad, the Ministry of External Affairs on May 13 publicly asserted that the decision to halt hostilities followed Indian military action that compelled Pakistan to stand down.This marked the first official and direct rejection by India of president Trump’s account of the ceasefire that brought an end to four days of hostilities involving drone warfare and missile strikes. However, the MEA did not respond to questions on whether India had lodged any protest over Trump’s remarks about using trade as leverage, his suggestion of mediating on Kashmir, or his references to the nuclear dimension of the conflict.At the weekly briefing on Tuesday (May 13), MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, “You will of course appreciate that early on 10th morning, we had mounted an extremely effective attack on key Pakistani air force bases. That was the reason they were now willing to stop firing and military action. Let me be clear. It was of force of Indian arms that compelled Pakistan to stop its firing.”He stated that the “specific date, time and wording of the understanding” was worked out between the Directors General of Military Operation of the two countries. “The request for this call was received by the MEA from the Pakistani High Commission at 1237 hours. The Pakistani side had initial difficulties connecting the hotline to the Indian side for technical reasons. The timing was then decided based on the availability of the Indian DGMO at 1535 hours,” he said.Jaiswal was asked about the fact that the US State Department’s press release described the ceasefire as “US-brokered” and was repeatedly pressed on whether India had formally protested the alleged mischaracterisation. He avoided a direct response, stating only that he was putting India’s position on record at the media briefing.“Again, you know, I have already answered those questions of yours when I talked about the question of ceasefire – as to who decided, what were the terms, when it happened, etc. So I would urge you to look at those comments of mine…I conveyed our position here on record, so I would request you to look at that,” he said.As for “conversations with other nations”, Jaiswal simply said that India conveyed to them that its Operation Sindoor was retaliation to the April 22 Pahalgam attack and that it would stop firing back at Pakistan only if the latter stops firing.““As regards conversations with other nations, the message from India was clear and consistent. And exactly the same message that we were conveying from public platforms was the one conveyed in private conversations…It is natural that many foreign leaders who heard this from us would have shared it with their Pakistani interlocutors,” said Jaiswal.‘The issue of trade’The US President had also stated on May 12 at the White House: “I said, come on, we’re gonna do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it. Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’ll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not gonna do any trade. People have never really used trade the way I used it, that I can tell you, and all of a sudden, they said, I think we’re gonna stop”.There was no official response from the Indian government on Monday, but official sources rejected Trump’s assertion, stating that “India rebuts US claim.”At the briefing, the MEA spokesperson stated that from the commencement of Operation Sindoor on May 7 to the ceasefire on May 10, “there were conversations between Indian and US leaders on the evolving military situation”.“The issue of trade did not come up in any of these discussions,” he said.Indian sources listed the four calls between India and the United States, vice-president J.D. Vance spoke to prime minister Narendra Modi on May 9, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to external affairs minister S. Jaishankar on May 8 and May 10 and to national security advisor Ajit Doval on May 10.At the same event where he talked about using trade as leverage to stop India-Pakistan conflict, Trump claimed, “And we stopped the nuclear conflict. I think it could have been a bad nuclear war. Millions of people could have been killed, so I’m very proud of that”.Responding to Trump’s suggestion that Washington had averted a “nuclear conflict,” Jaiswal said that the military engagement between India and Pakistan remained within conventional limits.“The military action was entirely in the conventional domain. There were some reports that Pakistan’s National Command Authority would meet on May 10, but this was later denied by them,” he said.A nice dinnerIt what was early this morning on Indian time, Trump reiterated that he used trade to reach the agreement at his address at the US-Saudi Investment Forum.“Just days ago my administration brokered an historic cease-fire to stop the escalating violence between India and Pakistan and I used trade to a large extent to do it. I said, fellas, come on, let’s make a deal, let’s do some trading, let’s not trade nuclear missiles, let’s trade the things that you make so beautifully, and they both have very powerful leaders, very strong leaders, smart leaders, and it all stopped,” he said.Trump asked the two sides to have a “nice dinner.”“The whole group worked with you but there’s a great job. They are actually getting along. Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn’t that be nice? We’ve come a long way,” he said.The nuclear ‘option’Earlier, Trump also referred to an interview with CNN in which Pakistani foreign minister M. Ishaq Dar stated that the nuclear option was never on the table.“As you know, India has a firm stance that it will not give in to nuclear blackmail or allow cross-border terrorism to be conducted under its cover. In conversations with various countries, we also cautioned that their subscribing to such scenarios could prove damaging in their own region,” Jaiswal said.At the same White House event, Trump had also claimed, “And we stopped the nuclear conflict. I think it could have been a bad nuclear war. Millions of people could have been killed, so I’m very proud of that.”The MEA spokesperson also reiterated India’s position that the Kashmir issue has to be discussed bilaterally with Pakistan. “That stated policy has not changed. As you are aware, the outstanding matter is the vacation of illegally occupied Indian territory by Pakistan,” said Jaiswal.Both president Trump and secretary of state Rubio had claimed that the United States will facilitate talks between the two South Asian neighbours on Kashmir. In response to a question suggesting that the United States had “re-hyphenated” India and Pakistan, Jaiswal argued that there was broad international recognition that Indian tourists were the victims of terrorism in Pahalgam and that the source of such terrorism lay across the border in Pakistan.He also claimed that foreign leaders had acknowledged India’s right to self-defence and pointed to the UN Security Council’s press statement, which underlined the need to hold the “perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism” accountable. However, none of the official statements issued by other countries, or the UNSC statement itself, mentioned Pakistan as being responsible for the attack.