NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: India and Pakistan have stepped back from the brink of all-out war, with a nudge from the US, but New Delhi’s aspirations as a global diplomatic power now face a key test after President Donald Trump offered to mediate on the dispute over Kashmir, analysts said.
India’s rapid rise as the world’s fifth-largest economy has boosted its confidence and clout on the world stage, where it has played an important role in addressing regional crises such as Sri Lanka’s economic collapse and the Myanmar earthquake.
But the conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir, which flared up in recent days with exchanges of missiles drones and air strikes that killed at least 66 people, touches a sensitive nerve in Indian politics.
How India threads the diplomatic needle — courting favor with Trump over issues like trade while asserting its own interests in the Kashmir conflict — will depend in large part on domestic politics and could determine the future prospects for conflict in Kashmir.
“India ... is likely not keen on the broader talks (that the ceasefire) calls for. Upholding it will pose challenges,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst based in Washington.
In a sign of just how fragile the truce remains, the two governments accused each other of serious violations late on Saturday.
The ceasefire, Kugelman noted, was “cobbled together hastily” when tensions were at their peak.
Trump said on Sunday that, following the ceasefire, “I am going to increase trade, substantially, with both of these great nations.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for his part, has not commented publicly on the conflict since it began.
India considers Kashmir an integral part of its territory and not open for negotiation, least of all through a third-party mediator. India and Pakistan both rule the scenic Himalayan region in part, claim it in full, and have fought two wars and numerous other conflicts over what India says is a Pakistan-backed insurgency there. Pakistan denies it backs insurgency.
“By agreeing to abort under US persuasion ... just three days of military operations, India is drawing international attention to the Kashmir dispute, not to Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism that triggered the crisis,” said Brahma Chellaney, an Indian defense analyst.
For decades after the two countries separated in 1947, the West largely saw India and Pakistan through the same lens as the neighbors fought regularly over Kashmir. That changed in recent years, partly thanks to India’s economic rise while Pakistan languished with an economy less than one-10th India’s size.
But Trump’s proposal to work toward a solution to the Kashmir problem, along with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s declaration that India and Pakistan would start talks on their broader issues at a neutral site, has irked many Indians.
Pakistan has repeatedly thanked Trump for his offer on Kashmir, while India has not acknowledged any role played by a third party in the ceasefire, saying it was agreed by the two sides themselves.
Analysts and Indian opposition parties are already questioning whether New Delhi met its strategic objectives by launching missiles into Pakistan on Wednesday last week, which it said were in retaliation for an attack last month on tourists in Kashmir that killed 26 men. It blamed the attack on Pakistan — a charge that Islamabad denied.
By launching missiles deep into Pakistan, Modi showed a much higher appetite for risk than his predecessors. But the sudden ceasefire exposed him to rare criticism at home.
Swapan Dasgupta, a former lawmaker from Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said the ceasefire had not gone down well in India partly because “Trump suddenly appeared out of nowhere and pronounced his verdict.”
The main opposition Congress party got in on the act, demanding an explanation from the government on the “ceasefire announcements made from Washington, D.C.”
“Have we opened the doors to third-party mediation?” asked Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh.
And while the fighting has stopped, there remain a number of flashpoints in the relationship that will test India’s resolve and may tempt it to adopt a hard-line stance.
The top issue for Pakistan, diplomats and government officials there said, would be the Indus Waters Treaty, which India suspended last month but which is a vital source of water for many of Pakistan’s farms and hydropower plants.
“Pakistan would not have agreed (to a ceasefire) without US guarantees of a broader dialogue,” said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a former foreign minister and currently chairman of the People’s Party of Pakistan, which supports the government.
Moeed Yusuf, former Pakistan National Security Adviser, said a broad agreement would be needed to break the cycle of brinksmanship over Kashmir.
“Because the underlying issues remain, and every six months, one year, two years, three years, something like this happens and then you are back at the brink of war in a nuclear environment,” he said.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is committed to upholding a ceasefire with India but it will take “all appropriate steps” to preserve the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), the Pakistani Foreign Office said on Sunday, saying the treaty is critical for Pakistan’s water security and economy.
Pakistan and India engaged in a military conflict and attacked the other with fighter aircraft, missiles, drones and artillery fire, following weeks of tensions between the two over an attack in the disputed Kashmir region that India blamed on Pakistan, Islamabad denies it.
The incursions that targeted several cities for four days killed nearly 60 people on both sides as major world powers scrambled for a ceasefire between the nuclear-armed arch-foes. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire that has largely held, except for some violations in Kashmir.
However, tensions remain high since Saturday’s announcement by Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri that the 1960 World Bank-brokered treaty would remain in abeyance, signaling deeper diplomatic rifts despite the temporary cessation of hostilities between the two neighbors.
“We are committed on ceasefire but the IWT is of critical importance for Pakistan’s water security and economy,” Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan told Arab News.
“Naturally, we will take all appropriate steps to preserve its sanctity and smooth implementation.”
India suspended the treaty, which ensures water for 80 percent of Pakistani farms, a day after the April 22 attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 tourists. Islamabad has called for a credible, international probe into the attack and described the Indian move to suspend the treaty as “act of war.”
The IWT grants Pakistan rights to the western rivers — Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab — for irrigation, drinking, and non-consumptive uses like hydropower, while India controls the eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — for unrestricted use but must not significantly alter their flow. India can use the western rivers for limited purposes such as power generation and irrigation, without storing or diverting large volumes, according to the agreement.
“The fact is that there have been fundamental changes in the circumstances in which the Indus Waters Treaty was concluded,” Indian Foreign Secretary Misri was quoted as saying by NDTV on Thursday.
He said there is now a need to “reassess the obligations under that treaty.”
Khan, the Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson, said India is in no position to unilaterally hold the treaty in abeyance in the absence of any relevant legal provisions in the agreement.
“Water is a vital national interest of Pakistan, a lifeline for its 240 million people and its availability will be safeguarded at all costs,” he said, reiterating Islamabad’s position that any attempt to stop or divert the flow of its water would be “responded with full force across the complete spectrum of national power.”
Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs Amir Muqam said any attempt to stop Pakistan’s share of water could lead to dangerous escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
“Stopping or reducing our share is absolutely not acceptable and can lead to further and dangerous escalation,” he told Arab News. “The revival of the Indus Waters Treaty in its current form remains a top priority on the agenda in any negotiations between the two countries.”
Muqam further stated that India must revive the IWT in its original form to maintain long-term peace in the region.
“There can be no compromise on it as it is a matter of life and death for us and there is no question of it that they [Indians] stop our water and we will remain silent,” the minister added.
Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations, having fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, a region split between them, since gaining independence from the former British colonial rule in 1947.