Congress MP and All-Party Delegation leader Shashi Tharoor said the Indian delegation has categorically rejected former US President Donald Trump’s recent claim of mediating peace between India and Pakistan, during a high-level meeting with US Vice President JD Vance.
Tharoor, speaking to ANI after the meeting, called the engagement with Vice President Vance “outstanding” and confirmed that the Indian side made its position “amply clear” on why mediation between India and Pakistan is unacceptable.
“The meeting with Vice President Vance was outstanding, very clear. We explained our view on mediation, and he fully understood our points,” Tharoor stated.
He emphasized that any notion of mediation falsely implies moral equivalence between India—a democratic nation that has been a consistent victim of terrorism—and Pakistan, which India accuses of harbouring and sponsoring terror groups.
“Mediation implies equivalence between two parties. There is no equivalence between terrorists and their victims, between a multi-party democracy and a nation offering safe haven to terrorism,” Tharoor said.
Reiterating India’s long-standing policy of bilateralism, Tharoor said that framing the India-Pakistan situation as one needing external mediation distorts the reality of cross-border terrorism and unjustly places both nations on the same plane.
“The message that third-party mediation is inappropriate was clearly conveyed and understood—not only by the Vice President but across other levels of the US administration as well,” he added.
The comments come in response to Donald Trump’s May 31 remarks where he claimed his administration had averted a potential nuclear war between India and Pakistan through trade diplomacy.
“I think the deal I’m most proud of is the fact that we were able to stop potentially a nuclear war through trade as opposed to bullets… There was a very nasty potential war going on between Pakistan and India, and now they’re doing fine,” Trump said.
India has repeatedly rejected similar mediation claims in the past, maintaining that any discussions on Kashmir or broader bilateral ties with Pakistan must occur directly and without third-party involvement.
Tharoor’s delegation is currently in Washington as part of India’s diplomatic outreach to brief key US stakeholders on Operation Sindoor—a counter-terror response to the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians in April.
