On Saturday, May 10, United States President Donald Trump announced over his social media handle that India and Pakistan had agreed to a "full and immediate ceasefire" after four days of strikes and counter-strikes against each other's military installations.
Reuters reported that Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said that both countries had agreed to a ceasefire "with immediate effect" and India's Foreign Ministry said it would end the fighting at 5 pm Indian time (1130 GMT).
"After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The sudden announcement came on a day when fears spiked that the countries' nuclear arsenals might come into play as Pakistan's military said a top military and civilian body overseeing its nuclear weapons would meet. However, Pakistan's defence minister later said no such meeting was scheduled.
Behind the media bluff and bluster, incessantly broadcast by the electronic media especially in belligerent India, officials from both sides showed a willingness to take a step back following the day's exchanges as the combined civilian death toll on the two sides rose to 66, Reuters said.
"Pakistan and India have agreed to a ceasefire with immediate effect," Pakistani Foreign minister Ishaq Dar posted on X. "Pakistan has always strived for peace and security in the region, without compromising on its sovereignty and territorial integrity," Dar said.
India's foreign ministry said that the head of Pakistan's military operations called his Indian counterpart on Saturday afternoon and it was agreed that both sides would stop all firing.
The two heads will speak to each other again on May 12, the ministry added.
The India-Pakistan war began on Wednesday when India carried out strikes on "terrorist infrastructure" in Pakistani Kashmir and also in Pakistan proper, two weeks after 26 Hindu tourists were killed in a terrorist attack in Pahalgam in Indian Kashmir.
Pakistan denied India's accusations that it was involved in the attack. Since Wednesday, the two countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling, and sent drones and missiles into each other's airspace.
They have been locked in a dispute over Kashmir since they were born after the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan both claim Kashmir in full but rule it in parts. They have gone to war over four times over Kashmir since 1948-49.
After Pakistan's invasion of Kashmir in 1948, India internationalized the conflict by seeking UN intervention. The Security Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire and negotiations. The US, along with the UK, supported this UN decision and stopped arms shipments to both countries, effectively ending the fighting.
A formal ceasefire line was established, dividing the territory between India and Pakistan, with India controlling approximately two-thirds of the region. The ceasefire line was supervised by the UN. But the Kashmir dispute itself remained.
The US remained aloof after that because it had an ambivalent relationship with India. During the 1950s, US regarded the Indian leadership with caution due to India’s involvement in the nonaligned movement supported by the USSR and China. The US hoped to maintain a regional balance of power, which meant not allowing India to influence political developments in Pakistan.
America’s relations with Pakistan, on the other hand, had been more positive. Pakistan was part of the US-led Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organization, (CENTO).
But after the 1962 border conflict between India and China ended with a decisive Chinese victory, the American stance changed vis-à-vis India. The US and UK provided military supplies to India.
The 1965 war between India and Pakistan was also over Kashmir. In August 1965, when the Pakistani Army attempted to take Kashmir by force, India moved quickly to internationalize the dispute. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 211 on September 20 calling for an end to the fighting and negotiations on the settlement of the Kashmir problem.
The US and the UK supported the UN decision by cutting off arms supplies to both belligerents. This ban affected the military capability of both belligerents. India accepted the ceasefire on September 21 and Pakistan on September 22.
Both sides also accepted the Soviet Union as a third-party mediator. Negotiations in Tashkent concluded in January 1966, with both sides giving up territorial claims, withdrawing their armies from the disputed territory.
Although the Tashkent agreement achieved its short-term aim of securing a ceasefire, the Kashmir conflict would reignite a few years later.
In 1971, the US Administration, led by President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, was hostile to India. But it neither supported India nor Pakistan when the two countries fought a war over the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. But the US Administration sent the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal to warn India to stop its military operations. It was not a serious effort to restrict India though.
The US media however was on the side of the Bangladeshi freedom struggle and appreciated India’s plight as it harboured millions of Bengali refugees.
The 1999 war over the heights of Kargil in Kashmir was a different kettle of fish. The US did not support Pakistan during this war, and successfully pressured the Pakistani administration to end hostilities. The US applied diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to withdraw its troops from Indian territory. President Bill Clinton, recognized Pakistan's aggression. He publicly condemned the incursion in Kargil and demanded Pakistan's immediate withdrawal.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with President Clinton in Washington in July 1999. During this meeting, Clinton made it clear that Pakistan must withdraw its troops behind the Line of Control.
With the Pakistani troops retreating, Indian forces regained control of the territory, marking the end of the war.
US President Donald Trump has effectively ended the latest India-Pakistan war that was fought between April 22 and May 10, 2025, code named “Operation Sindoor” by India and “Operation Bunyan Marsoos” by Pakistan.
Trump negotiated a ceasefire, using his enormous power over the two countries, including Pakistan despite its iron-clad friendship with China. Fortunately, China did not back the Pakistani military (apart from allowing its hardware to be used). Bejing kept asking the two sides to exercise restraint. China has too deep an economic interest in both India and Pakistan to induce them to keep fighting.
In a seminal article on the US stance vis-à-vis Operation Sindoor, Moeed Yusuf, Senior Fellow at the Belfer CenterBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs, US, and former National Security Adviser of Pakistan, writes that the absence of strong US backing may have tempered India’s aggressive posturing, reducing tensions between the two countries.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given his armed forces “complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets and timing” of any Indian military action. And Pakistan had responded with a mix of messages, calling for an inquiry into the terrorist incident before jumping to conclusions while insisting that Indian use of force will be met with a “quid pro quo plus” response.
According to Yusuf, India and Pakistan stumble into dangerous crises every few years, because they lack robust bilateral crisis communication and escalation control mechanisms. These were pivotal in preventing a nuclear exchange between the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War, Yusuf recalls.
Therefore, New Delhi and Islamabad have consistently banked on third party actors as the principal means of crisis de-escalation, he adds.
As the third party, the US has been the single most important player, always proactively engaging in crisis mediation in a region it has had serious stakes in.
“The White House is the main reason India and Pakistan have not gone to full-scale war in the past week, although Washington’s calming influence on the Pahalgam crisis seems to have been accidental rather than planned,” Yusus opines.
Very importantly, recognizing the necessity of preventing a major war in a nuclear environment, even China and Russia tended to align their crisis diplomacy with Washington, Yusuf points out.
In 2016 India kinetically responded to a terrorist attack in Kashmir by conducting surgical strikes in Pakistani Kashmir. The US sought de-escalation, but it never criticized the Indian strikes. In fact, it blamed Pakistan for not being able to control anti-India militancy.
A terrorist attack in Pulwama in Kashmir in 2019 led to India’s conducting air strikes deep inside Pakistan. India had been emboldened by America’s uncharacteristically favourable position towards it, according to Yusuf.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that the US “stands with India as it confronts terrorism.” National Security Advisor John Bolton reportedly amplified US support for “India’s right to self-defence against cross-border terrorism” during a conversation with his Indian counterpart.
But US’ verbal support did not work for India, Yusuf contends. Pakistan responded and, in the process, shot down an Indian jet and captured the pilot.
However, with the risk of further escalation imminent, the US and other third parties quickly changed their tone and reverted to prioritizing immediate de-escalation above all else, Yusuf points out.
As before, shortly thereafter, Pakistan agreed to release the Indian pilot to end the crisis.
Encouraged by a Modi-friendly Donald Trump’s return to the White House, New Delhi once again planned to flex its military muscle against Pakistan after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, 2025 in which 26 innocent tourists were killed.
Multiple voices in India called for a ‘final war’ with Pakistan, with even opposition party members advocating the nuclear neighbour’s annihilation. But third party backing was a necessary ingredient even for India’s success. It did not come. Minus third party pressure to force an end to the crisis, India and Pakistan have no credible means of ending the war either.
In the first instance, the US had chosen a role. Rather than seeking to lead international crisis diplomacy, it took a hands-off approach, leaving India and Pakistan to adjust their strategy.
Aboard Air Force one, on April 25, President Trump remarked "They'll get it figured out one way or the other.” "There's great tension between Pakistan and India, but there always has been.”
Trump also did not commit to contacting the leadership of the two countries. The US was also not active in coordinating crisis diplomacy globally, leaving other capitals – none with the heft and influence the US has had over New Delhi and Islamabad – to fill the vacuum.
But the Gulf countries, China, and European countries all urged restraint through statements and direct contacts with Indian and Pakistani officials but none even remotely hinted at support for any military action from either side. On April 30 that the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Indian and Pakistani decision makers, again primarily to urge restraint.
Ultimately, on May 10, President Trump came out of his shell and acted, having realised that he would not be able to make use of an economically resurgent India to revive the US economy and also prevent Pakistan from going into a tighter embrace with its “Iron Brother” China. He got India and Pakistan to stop the war.
On its part, India needed the US critically for its economic and security needs. And despite its very strong relations with China, Pakistan knows that the US could actually carry out its past outrageous threat to “bomb it into the stone age” if it shut its ears to US demands. In an interview to CBS television in 2006 Pakistan's then president, General Pervez Musharraf, said the threat was delivered by the assistant secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in conversations with Pakistan's intelligence director.
Ultimately, it is America’s power which brought peace between India and Pakistan after days of excruciating tension.